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A    LIFE 


OF 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


BY 


SIDNEY    LEE 


WITH  PORTRAITS  AND  FACSIMILES 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY^\S^ 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1906 

All  rights  reserved 


J I 


X, 


Copyright,  1898, 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  November,  1898.  Reprinted  January, 
November,  1899  ;  July,  1901 ;  February,  1903;  April,  1904;  July, 
1906. 


NoriuooS  IPrtBS 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  *  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


This  work  is  based  on  the  article  on  Shakespeare 
which  I  contributed  last  year  to  the  lifty-first  volume 
of  the  '  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.'  But  the 
changes  and  additions  which  the  article  has  under- 
gone during  my  revision  of  it  for  separate  publication 
are  so  numerous  as  to  give  the  book  a  title  to  be 
regarded  as  an  independent  venture.  In  its  general 
aims,  however,  the  present  life  of  Shakespeare  en- 
deavours loyally  to  adhere  to  the  principles  that  are 
inherent  in  the  scheme  of  the  '  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography.'  I  have  endeavoured  to  set  before  my 
readers  a  plain  and  practical  narrative  of  the  great 
dramatist's  personal  history  as  concisely  as  the  needs 
of  clearness  and  completeness  would  permit.  I  have 
sought  to  provide  students  of  Shakespeare  with  a  full 
record  of  the  duly  attested  facts  and  dates  of  their 
master's  career.  I  have  avoided  merely  aesthetic  criti- 
cism. My  estimates  of  the  value  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  and  poems  are  intended  solely  to  fulfil  the 
obligation  that  lies  on  the  biographer  of  indicating 

V 

373J94 


VI  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

succinctly  the  character  of  the  successive  labours, 
which  were  woven  into  the  texture  of  his  hero's  life. 
Esthetic  studies  of  Shakespeare  abound,  and  to  in- 
crease their  number  is  a  work  of  supererogation.  But 
Shakespearean  literature,  as  far  as  it  is  known  to  me, 
still  lacks  a  book  that  shall  supply  within  a  brief 
compass  an  exhaustive  and  well-arranged  statement 
of  the  facts  of  Shakespeare's  career,  achievement,  and 
reputation,  that  shall  reduce  conjecture  to  the  smallest 
dimensions  consistent  with  coherence,  and  shall  give 
verifiable  references  to  all  the  original  sources  of 
information.  After  studying  Elizabethan  literature, 
history,  and  bibliography  for  more  than  eighteen 
years,  I  believed  that  I  might,  without  exposing  my- 
self to  a  charge  of  presumption,  attempt  something  in 
the  way  of  filling  this  gap,  and  that  I  might  be  able 
to  supply,  at  least  tentatively,  a  guide-book  to  Shake- 
speare's life  and  work  that  should  be,  within  its  limits, 
complete  and  trustworthy.  How  far  my  belief  was 
justified  the  readers  of  this  volume  will  decide. 

I  cannot  promise  my  readers  any  startling  revela- 
tions. But  my  researches  have  enabled  me  to  remove 
some  ambiguities  which  puzzled  my  predecessors, 
and  to  throw  light  on  one  or  two  topics  that  have 
hitherto  obscured  the  course  of  Shakespeare's  career. 
Particulars  that  have  not  been  before  incorporated 
in  Shakespeare's  biography  will  be  found  in  my 
treatment  of  the  following  subjects :  the  conditions 
under  which  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  and  the  '  Mer- 


PREFACE  vii 

chant  of  Venice '  were  written ;  the  references  in 
Shakespeare's  plays  to  his  native  town  and  county ; 
his  father's  applications  to  the  Heralds'  College  for 
coat-armour;  his  relations  with  Ben  Jonson  and  the 
boy  actors  in  1601  ;  the  favour  extended  to  his  work 
by  James  I  and  'his  Court ;  the  circumstances  which 
led  to  the  publication  of  the  First  Folio,  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  dramatist's  portraits.  I  have  somewhat 
expanded  the  notices  of  Shakespeare's  financial  affairs 
which  have  already  appeared  in  the  article  in  the 
'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,'  and  a  few  new 
facts  will  be  found  in  my  revised  estimate  of  the 
poet's  pecuniary  position. 

In  my  treatment  of  the  sonnets  I  have  pursued 
what  I  believe  to  be  an  original  line  of  investigation. 
The  strictly  autobiographical  interpretation  that  crit- 
ics have  of  late  placed  on  these  poems  compelled 
me,  as  Shakespeare's  biographer,  to  submit  them  to 
a  very  narrow  scrutiny.  My  conclusion  is  adverse  to 
the  claim  of  the  sonnets  to  rank  as  autobiographical 
documents,  but  I  have  felt  bound,  out  of  respect  to 
waiters  from  whose  views  I  dissent,  to  give  in  detail 
the  evidence  on  which  I  base  my  judgment.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  sagaciously  laid  down  the  maxim  that 
'  the  criticism  which  alone  can  much  help  us  for  the 
future  is  a  criticism  which  regards  Europe  as  being 
for  intellectual  and  artistic  ^  purposes  one  great  con- 

^  Arnold  wrote  'spiritual,'  but  the  change  of  epithet  is  needful  to 
render  the  dictum  thoroughly  pertinent  to  the  topic  under  consideration. 


Vlll  WILLIAM    SIIAKESrEARE 

federation,  bound  to  a  joint  action  and  working  to  a 
common  result.'  It  is  criticism  inspired  by  this  lib- 
eralising principle  that  is  especially  applicable  to  the 
vast  sonnet-literature  which  was  produced  by  Shake- 
speare and  his  contemporaries.  It  is  criticism  of  the 
type  that  Arnold  recommended  that  can  alone  lead 
to  any  accurate  and  profitable  conclusion  respect- 
ing the  intention  of  the  vast  sonnet-literature  of  the 
Elizabethan  era.  In  accordance  with  Arnold's  sug- 
gestion, I  have  studied  Shakespeare's  sonnets  com- 
paratively with  those  in  vogue  in  England,  France, 
and  Italy  at  the  time  he  wrote.  I  have  endeavoured 
to  learn  the  view  that  was  taken  of  such  literary 
endeavours  by  contemporary  critics  and  readers 
throughout  Europe.  My  researches  have  covered  a 
very  small  portion  of  the  wide  field.  But  I  have  gone 
far  enough,  I  think,  to  justify  the  conviction  that 
Shakespeare's  collection  of  sonnets  has  no  reasonable 
title  to  be  regarded  as  a  personal  or  autobiographical 
narrative. 

In  the  Appendix  (Sections  iii.  and  iv.)  I  have 
supplied  a  memoir  of  Shakespeare's  patron,  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  and  an  account  of  the  Earl's  rela- 
tions with  the  contemporary  world  of  letters.  Apart 
from  Southampton's  association  with  the  sonnets,  he 
promoted  Shakespeare's  welfare  at  an  early  stage  of 
the  dramatist's  career,  and  I  can  quote  the  authority 
of  Malone,  who  appended  a  sketch  of  Southamp- 
ton's history  to  his  biography  of  Shakespeare  (in  the 


PREFACE  ix 

'Variorum'  edition  of  1821);  for  treating  a  know- 
ledge of  Southampton's  life  as  essential  to  a  full 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare's.  I  have  also  printed  in 
the  Appendix  a  detailed  statement  of  the  precise  cir- 
cumstances under  which  Shakespeare's  sonnets  were 
published  by  Thomas  Thorpe  in  1609  (Section  v.), 
and  a  review  of  the  facts  that  seem  to  me  to  confute 
the  popular  theory  that  Shakespeare  was  g  friend  and 
protege  of  William  Herbert,  third  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
who  has  been  put  forward  quite  unwarrantably  as  the 
hero  of  the  sonnets  (Sections  vr.,  vii.,  viii.y  I  have 
also  included  in  the  Appendix  (Sections  ix.  and  x.) 
a  survey  of  the  voluminous  sonnet-literature  of  the 
Elizabethan  poets  between  1591  and  1597,  with  which 
Shakespeare's  sonnetteering  efforts  were  very  closely 
allied,  as  well  as  a  bibliographical  note  on  a  corre- 
sponding feature  of  French  and  Italian  literature 
between  1550  and  i6(X). 

Since  the  publication  of  the  article  on  Shake- 
speare in  the  '  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,'  I 
have  received  from  correspondents  many  criticisms 
and  suggestions  which  have  enabled  me  to  correct 
some  errors.  But  a  few  of  my  correspondents  have 
exhibited  so  insrenuous  a  faith  in  those  forged  docu- 


^  I  have  already  published  portions  of  the  papers  on  Shakespeare's 
relations  with  the  Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Southampton  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Review  (for  February  of  this  year)  and  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine 
(for  April  of  this  year),  and  I  have  to  thank  the  proprietors  of  those 
periodicals  for  permission  to  reproduce  my  material  in  this  volume. 


X  WILLIAM   SIL\KESrLARE 

ments  relating  to  Shakespeare  and  forged  references 
to  his  works,  which  were  promulgated  chiefly  by- 
John  Payne  Collier  more  than  half  a  century  ago, 
that  I  have  attached  a  list  of  the  misleading  records 
to  my  chapter  on  'The  Sources  of  Biographical 
Information'  in  the  Appendix  (Section  i.).  I  be- 
lieve the  list  to  be  fuller  than  any  to  be  met  with 
elsewhere. 

The  six  illustrations  which  appear  in  this  volume 
have  been  chosen  on  grounds  of  practical  utility 
rather  than  of  artistic  merit.  My  reasons  for  selecting 
as  the  frontispiece  the  newly  discovered  '  Droeshout ' 
painting  of  Shakespeare  (now  in  the  Shakespeare 
Memorial  Gallery  at  Stratford-on-Avon)  can  be  gath- 
ered from  the  history  of  the  painting  and  of  its  dis- 
covery which  I  give  on  pages  288-90.  I  have  to 
thank  Mr.  Edgar  Flower  and  the  other  members  of 
the  Council  of  the  Shakespeare  Memorial  at  Stratford 
for  permission  to  reproduce  the  picture.  The  por- 
trait of  Southampton  in  early  life  is  now  at  Welbeck 
Abbey,  and  the  Duke  of  Portland  not  only  per- 
mitted the  portrait  to  be  engraved  for  this  volume, 
but  lent  me  the  negative  from  which  the  plate  has 
been  prepared.  •  The  Committee  of  the  Garrick 
Club  gave  permission  to  photograph  the  interesting 
bust  of  Shakespeare  in  their  possession,^  but,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  it  is  moulded  in  black  terra-cotta, 
no    satisfactory    negative    could    be    obtained ;     the 

^  For  an  account  of  its  history  see  p.  295. 


PREFACE  xi 

engraving  I  have  used  is  from  a  photograph  of  a 
white  plaster  cast  of  the  original  bust,  now  in  the 
Memorial  Gallery  at  Stratford.  The  five  autographs 
of  Shakespeare's  signature  —  all  that  exist  of  un- 
questioned  authenticity  —  appear  in  the  three  remain- 
ing plates.  The  three  signatures  on  the  will  have 
been  photographed  from  the  original  document  at 
Somerset  House,  by  permission  of  Sir  Francis  Jeune, 
President  of  the  Probate  Court ;  the  autograph  on 
the  deed  of  purchase  by  Shakespeare  in  1613  of 
the  house  in  Blackfriars  has  been  photographed 
from  the  original  document  in  the  Guildhall  Library, 
by  permission  of  the  Library  Committee  of  the  City 
of  London;  and  the  autograph  on  the  deed  of 
mortgage  relating  to  the  same  property,  also  dated 
in  16 1 3,  has  been  photographed  from  the  original 
document  in  the  British  Museum,  by  permission  of 
the  Trustees.  Shakespeare's  coat-of-arms  and  motto, 
which  are  stamped  on  the  cover  of  this  volume,  are 
copied  from  the  trickings  in  the  margin  of  the  draft- 
grants  of  arms  now  in  the  Heralds'  College. 

The  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts  has  kindly  given  me 
ample  opportunities  of  examining  the  two  peculiarly 
interesting  and  valuable  copies  of  the  First  Folio  ^  in 
her  possession.  Mr.  Richard  Savage,  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  the  Secretary  of  the  Birthplace  Trustees,  and 
Mr.  W.  Salt  Brassington,  the  Librarian  of  the  Shake- 
speare  Memorial  at  Stratford,  have  courteously  re- 

1  See  pp.  309,  311. 


xii  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

plied  to  the  many  inquiries  that  I  have  addressed  to 
them  verbally  or  by  letter.  Mr.  Lionel  Cust,  the 
Director  of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  has  helped 
me  to  estimate  the  authenticity  of  Shakespeare's 
portraits.  I  have  also  benefited,  while  the  work  has 
been  passing  through  the  press,  by  the  valuable  sug- 
gestions of  my  friends  the  Rev.  H.  C.  Beeching  and 
Mr.  W.  J.  Craig,  and  I  have  to  thank  Mr.  Thomas 
Seccombe  for  the  zealous  aid  he  has  rendered  me 
while  correcting  the  final  proofs. 

October  12,  1S98. 


CONTENTS 


PARENTAGE  AND   BIRTH 


Distribution  of  the  name 
of  Shakespeare 

The  poet's  ancestry  . 

The  poet's  father 

His  settlement  at  Strat- 
ford       .... 


The  poet's  mother 
1564,  April.      The    poet's 
and  baptism  . 
Alleged  birthplace 


PAGE 

.      6 


birth 


II 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE 


The   father  in    municipa 

office 
Brothers  and  sisters  . 
The  father's  financial  dif 
ficulties  . 
1571-7  Shakespeare's  education 
His  classical  equipment 
Shakespeare's  knowledge 
of  the  Bible    . 
1575     Queen  Elizabeth  at  Ken 

ilworth    . 
1577    Withdrawal  from  school 


16 


1582,  De<.     The  poet's  marriage 

Richard  Hathaway  of 
Shottery 

Anne  Hathaway 

Anne  Hathaway's  cot- 
tage       .... 

The  bond  against  imped- 
iments .... 
15S3,  May.  Birth  of  the  poet's 
daughter  Susanna 

Formal  betrothal  proba- 
bly dispensed  with 


19 


23 


XIV 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


III 


THE   FAREWELL   TO    STRATFORD 


Early  married  life 
Poaching  in  Charlecote    . 
Unwarranted    doubts    of 
the  tradition  . 


28 


1585 


Justice  Shallow 

The  flight  from  Stratford . 


IV 


ON   THE   LONDON    STAGE 


1586    The  Journey  to  London  . 
Richard      Field,      Shake- 
speare's townsman 
Theatrical  employment     . 
A  playhouse  servitor 
The  acting  companies 
The  Lord  Chamberlain's 

company 
Shakespeare  a  member  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
company 


31 

The  London  theatres 
Place  of  residence  in  Lon- 

36 

32 

don         .... 

38 

32 

Actors'  provincial  tours    . 

39 

33 

Shakespeare's      alleged 

34 

travels    .... 

40 

In  Scotland 

41 

35 

In  Italy      .... 

42 

Shakespeare's  roles  . 

43 

His   alleged  scorn  of  an 

36 

actor's  calling 

45 

EARLY   DRAMATIC   WORK 


The  period  of  Shake- 
speare's dramatic  work, 
1591-1611 

His  borrowed  plots  . 

The  revision  of  plays 

Chronology  of  the  plays 

Metrical  tests     . 
1591     Love's  Labour's  Lost 

1591  Two  Ge?itlemen  of  Verona 

1592  Comedy  0/ Errors 
1592     Romeo  and  yitliet 
1592,  March.     Henry  VI    . 
1592,  Sept     Greene's   attack   on 

Shakespeare  . 
Chettle's  apology 
Divided      authorship      of 

Henry  VI       . 
Shakespeare's   coadjutors 
Shakespeare's  assimilative 

power     .         .         .         . 
Lyly's  influence  in  comedy 


Marlowe's    influence     in 

tragedy  .  .  .  -63 
Richard  III  ...  63 
Richard  II  .  .  .64 
Shakespeare's  acknow- 
ledgments to  Marlowe  .  64 
Titus  Andronicus  .  .  65 
1594,  August.      The  Merchant  of 

Venice  .  .  .  .66 
Shylock     and      Roderigo 

Lopez  .  .  .  .68 
A'in^  John  .  .  .69 
Dec.  28.  Comedy  of  Er- 
rors in  Gray's  Inn  Hall  70 
Early  plays  doubtfully  as- 
signed to  Shakespeare  .  71 
Arden       of      Feversham 

(1592)  ....  71 
Edivard  III  .  .  .72 
Alucedorus  .  .  .72 
Faire  Em  (1592)        .        .     73 


1593 
1593 


1593 


1594 
15941 


CONTENTS 


XV 


VI 


THE   FIRST   APPEAL    TO   THE   READING   PUBLIC 


1593,  April.     Publication  of  Ve- 

nus and  Adonis      .         .     74 

1594,  May.     Publication   of  Lu- 

crece       .        .        .        •76 


Enthusiastic  reception  of 

the  poems  .  .  .78 
Shakespeare  and  Spenser  79 
Patrons  at  Court       .        .    81 


VII 


THE    SONNETS   AND   THEIR    LITERARY    HISTORY 


The  vogue  of   the    Eliza- 
bethan sonnet        .        .    83 
Shakespeare's  first  experi- 
ments     .         .         .        .84 
1594     Majority  of  Shakespeare's 

sonnets  composed  .     85 

Their  literary  value  .  .  87 
Circulation  in  manuscript  88 
■'I'heir  piratical  publication 

in  1609    .         .         .         .89 
A  Lover's  Complaint  91 

Thomas  Thorpe  and  '  Mr. 

W.  H;    .         .         .         .     91 
The  form  of  Shakespeare's 

sonnets  .        .        .        -95 

1  heir  want  of  continuity  .     96 

The  two  '  groups  '     .        -96 

Main   topics   of    the   first 

■group'  ...    98 


Main  topics  of  the  second 
'  group  '  ...    99 

The  order  of  the  sonnets 
in  the  edition  of  1640     .  100 

Lack  of  genuine  senti- 
ment in  Elizabethan 
sonnets  ....  100 

Their  dependence  on 
French  and  Italian 
models    ....  loi 

Sonnetteers'  admissions  of 
insincerity      .         .         .  105 

Contemporary  censure  of 
sonnetteers'  false  senti- 
ment      ....  106 

Shakespeare's  scornful  al- 
lusions to  sonnets  in  his 
plays      ....  108 


VIII 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF    THE   SONNETS 


Slender  autobiographi- 
cal element  in  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  . 
The  imitative  element 
Shakespeare's  claims  of 
immortality  for  his  son- 
nets a  borrowed  con- 
ceit .         .         .         . 


109 
109 


113 


Conceits  in  sonnets  ad- 
dressed to  a  woman       .  117 

The  praise  of  '  blackness  '  118 

The  sonnets  of  vitupera- 
tion ....  120 

Gabriel  Harvey's '  Amo- 
rous Odious  sonnet        ,  121 

Jodclle's  Cotttr'  Amours   .  122 


XVI 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


IX 


THE  PATRONAGE  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 


Biographic  fact  in  the 
'  dedicatory  '  sonnets     . 

The  Earl  of  Southampton 
the  poet's  sole  patron    . 

Rivals  in  Southampton's 
favour     .... 

Shakespeare's  fear  of  an- 
other poet 

Barnabe  Barnes  probably 
the  chief  rival 

Other  theories  as  to  the 
chief  rival's  identity 

Sonnets  of  friendship 

Extravagances  of  literary 
compliment   . 


126 


PAGE 

Patrons  habitually  ad- 
dressed in  affectionate 
terms 

Direct  references  to 
Southampton  in  the 
sonnets  of  friendship 

His  youthfulness 

The  evidence  of  portraits  144 

Sonnet  cvii.  the  last  of  the 
series      ....  147 

Allusions  to  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's death  .         .         .  147 

Allusion  to  Southamp- 
ton's release  from 
prison     ....  149 


139 


142 
143 


X 


THE   SUPPOSED   STORY   OF    INTRIGUE   IN   THE   SONNETS 


Sonnets  of  melancholy 
and  self-reproach  .         .  151 

The  youth's  relations  with 
the  poet's  mistress         .  153 


Ms 


Avisa 


Willobie 

(1594)     •         •         •         -155 
Summary  of   conclusions 
respecting  the  sonnets  .   158 


XI 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DRAMATIC   POWER 


1594- 
1595 


159s 


1597 
1597 
1598 


5  Midsummer       Night's 

Essex  and  the  rebellion  of 

Dream.    ....  161 

1601        .        .        .        . 

174 

All's      Well    that     Ends 

Shakespeare's    popularity 

Well       .         .         .         .162 

and  influence 

176 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrcio  163 

Shakespeare's    friendship 

Stratford  allusions  in  the 

with  Ben  Jonson    ., 

176 

Induction       .         .         .  164 

The  Mermaid  meetings    . 

177 

Wincot       .         .         .        .165 

1598 

Meres's  eulogy  . 

178 

Henry  IV .         .         .         .167 

Value  of  his  name  to  pub- 

Falstaff      .         .         .         .169 

lishers    .        .        .        . 

179 

T/ie     A  ferry      Wives      of 

1599 

T/ie  Passionate  Pilgritn    . 

182 

Windsor         .         .         .  171 

1601 

The     Phxnix     and     the 

Henry  I'   .         .        .        .  173 

Turtle     .        .         .         . 

183 

CONTENTS 


XVll 


XII 


THE   PRACTICAL   AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE 


Shakespeare's      practical 

temperament.        .        .  185 

His  father's  difficulties      .  186 

His  wife's  debt .         .        .  187 

1596-9   The  coat  of  arms    .        .  188 

1597,  May  4.     The   purchase   of 

New  Place     .         .        .  193 
1598     Fellow-townsmen    appeal 

to  Shakespeare  for  aid  195 
Shakespeare's       financial 
position  before  1599      .  196 


Shakespeare's      financial 

position  after  1599 
His  later  income 
Incomes  of  fellow-actors  . 
1601-1610     Shakespeare's      for- 
mation of  his  estate  at 
Stratford 
1605    The  Stratford  tithes  . 
1600-1609     Recovery    of   small 
debts      .        .        .        . 


200 
202 
203 


204 

205 


206 


XIII 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS 


1599 
1599 
1000 
1601 


1601 


Literary  work  in  1599       .  207 

Muck  Ado  about  Nothing  208 
.  209 
.  209 
.  211 


As  You  Like  It . 

'Rvelfth  Night . 

Julius  Caesar    . 

The  strife  between  adult 
actors  and  boy  actors    . 

Shakespeare's  references 
to  the  struggle 

Ben  Jonson's  Poetaster     . 

Shakespeare's  alleged  par- 
tisanship in  the  theatri- 
cal warfare     . 


213 

216 
217 


219 


1602  Hamlet      ....  221 
The  problem  of  its  publi- 
cation    ....  222 

The  First  Quarto,  1603  .  222 
The  Second  Quarto,  1604  223 
The  Folio  version,  1623  .  223 
Popularity  of  Hamlet        .  224 

1603  Troilus  a>id  Cressida        .  225 
Treatment  of  the  theme    .  227 

1603,  March  26.      Queen   Eliza- 
beth's death  .        .        .  229 
James  I's  patronage         .  230 


XIV 
THE   HIGHEST   THEMES   OF   TRAGEDY 


1604,  Nov.     Othello     .        .        .  235 
1604,  Dec.     Measure  for  Meas- 
ure ....  237 

1606  Macbeth     ....  239 

1607  King  Lear  .         .        .  241 


1608  Timon  of  Athens        ,        .  242 

1608  Pericles      ....  243 

1608  Antony  and  Cleopatra        .  245 

1609  Coriolanus         .        .        .  247 


XVUl 


WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


XV 


THE    LATEST    PLAYS 


The  placid  temper  of  the 
latest  plays     .         .         .  248 

1610  Cymbeline  ....  249 

161 1  A   Winter's  Tale       .         .  251 
16 1 1      Tke  Tempest      .        .         .  252 

Fanciful  interpretations  of 

The  Tempest.         .         .  256 
Unfinished  plays       .        .  258 


The  lost  play  of  Car- 
denio       ....  258 

The  Two  Noble  Kins- 
meft         ....  259 

Henry  VIII       .         .         .261 

The  burning  of  the  Globe 
Theatre ....  262 


XVI 

THE   CLOSE   OF   LIFE 


Plays  at  Court  in  16 13      .  264 
Actor-friends     .         .         .  264 
161 1     Final  settlement  at  Strat- 
ford        ....  266 
Domestic  affairs        .         .  266 

1613,  March.     Purchase     of     a 

house  in  Blackfriars       .  267 

1614,  Oct.     Attempt    to    enclose 

the   Stratford    common 
fields       ....  269 
1616,  April  23.      Shakespeare's 

death      ....  272 


1616,  April  25.      Shakespeare's 

burial  ....  272 
The  will  ....  273 
Shakespeare's  bequest  to 

his  wife  ....  273 
Shakespeare's  heiress  .  275 
Legacies  to  friends  .  .  276 
The    tomb    in    Stratford 

Church  ....  276 
Shakespeare's       personal 

character        .        .        .  277 


XVII 

SURVIVORS   AND   DESCENDANTS 


Mrs.  Judith  Quiney  (1585- 
1662)       ....  280 

Mrs.  Susannah  Hall 
(1583-1649)    .        .        .281 


The  last  descendant .         .  282 
Shakespeare's      brothers, 
Edmund,  Richard,  and 
Gilbert    .         .         .        .283 


XVIII 
AUTOGRAPHS,    PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS 


Spelling  of  the  poet's 
name      .         .         .         . 

Autograph  signatures 

Shakespeare's  portraits     . 

The  Stratford  bust    . 

The  '  Stratford  portrait '    . 

Droeshout's  engraving 

The  '  Droeshout '  paint- 
ing  

Later  portraits  . 


284 
284 
286 
286 
287 
287 


291 


The  Chandos  portrait  .  292 

The  '  Jansen  '  portrait  .  294 

The  '  Felton  '  portrait  .  294 

The  '  Soest '  portrait.  .  294 

Miniatures         .         .  .  295 

The  Garrick  Club  bust  .  295 

Alleged  death-mask  .  .  296 

Memorials  in  sculpture  .  297 

Memorials  at  Stratford  .  297 


CONTENTS 


XIX 


XIX 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


PAGE 

Quartos  of  the  poems  in 

the  poet's  lifetime  .         .  299 
Posthumous     quartos    of 


the  poems 
The  '  Poems  '  of  1640 
Quartos  of  the  plays  in  the 

poet's  lifetime 
Posthumous  quartos  of  the 

plays 
1623    The  First  Folio 

The      publishing      syndi 

cate 
The  prefatory  matter 
The  value  of  the  text 
The  order  of  the  plays 
The  typography 
Unique  copies  . 
The  Sheldon  copy    . 
Estimated  number  of  ex 

tant  copies 
Reprints      of     the     First 

Folio 
1632    The  Second  Folio     . 
1663-4  The  Third  Folio 
1685     The  Fourth  Folio      . 

Eighteenth-century       edi 

tors 
Nicholas     Rowe     (1674- 

1718)       .        .        . 


300 
300 

300 

300 
303 

303 
306 

307 
307 
308 
308 
309 

310 

3" 
312 
312 
313 

313 

314 


PAGE 

Alexander    Pope     (1688- 

1744)  •  •  •  -315 
Lewis    Theobald    (1688- 

1744)  •  .  .  -317 
Sir       Thomas       Hanmer 

(1677-1746)  .  .  .317 
Bishop  Warburton  (1698- 

1779)  .  .  .  .318 
Dr.  Johnson  (1709-1783)  .  319 
Edward      Capell      (1713- 

1781)      .         .  .         .  319 

George    Steevens    (1736- 

1800)  ....  320 
Edmund    Malone    (1741- 

1812)  ....  322 
Variorum  editions  .  .  322 
Nineteenth-century  edi- 
tors  323 

Alexander    Dyce     (1798- 

1C69)  .  .  .  .323 
Howard  Staunton  (1810- 

1874)  .  .  .  .324 
Nikolaus     Delius    (1813- 

1888)  .  .  .  .324 
The    Cambridge    edition 

(1863-1866)  .  .  .324 
Other   nineteenth-century 

editions  ....  324 


XX 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION 


Views    of    Shakespeare's 

The   first   appearance   of 

contemporaries 

326 

actresses      in      Shake- 

Ben Jonson's  tribute 

327 

spearean  parts 

English   opinion  between 

David      Garrick      (1717- 

1660  and  1702 

329 

1779)       .... 

Dryden's  view  . 

330 

John        Philip       Kemble 

Restoration  adaptations    . 

331 

(1757-1823)    . 

English  opinion  from  1702 

Mrs.       Sarah        Siddons 

onwards 

332 

(1755-1831)    . 

Stratford  festivals 

334 

Edmund      Kean      (1787- 

Shakespeare  on  the  Eng- 

1833)      .         .         .         . 

lish  stage 

334 

334 
336 


337 


337 
338 


XX 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


William     Charles      Mac- 

Shakespeare  in  France 

347 

ready  (1793-1873) 

339 

Voltaire's  strictures  . 

348 

Recent  revivals. 

339 

P'rench      critics'     gradua 

Shakespeare    in    English 

emancipation  from  Vol 

music  and  art 

340 

tairean  influence    . 

349 

Boydell's        Shakespeare 

Shakespeare        on        the 

gallery    .... 

341 

French  stage  . 

350 

Shakespeare  in  America  . 

341 

Shakespeare  in  Italy 

352 

Translations 

342 

In  Holland 

352 

Shakespeare  in  Germany. 

342 

In  Russia  . 

353 

German  translations. 

343 

In  Poland. 

353 

Modern  German  critics    . 

345 

In  Hungary 

353 

Shakespeare  on  the  Ger- 

In other  countries     . 

354 

man  stage 

345 

XXI 

GENERAL   ESTIMATE 

General  estimate 

355 

Character       of       Shake 

Shakespeare's  defects 

355 

speare's  achievement 
Its  universal  recognition 

356 
357 

APPENDIX 


THE   SOURCES  OF   BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE 


Contemporary        records 

abundant  .  .  .  361 
First  efforts  in  biography.  361 
Biographers  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  .  .  362 
Stratford  topography  .  363 
Specialised      studies      in 

biography       .         .        .363 
Epitomes   ....  364 
Aids  to  study  of  plots  and 
text         ....  364 


Concordances  .  .  .  364 
Bibliographies  .  .  .  365 
Critical  studies  .  .  .  365 
Shakespearean  forgeries  .  365 
John  Jordan  (1746-1809)  366 
The      Ireland      forgeries 

(1796)     .         .         .         .366 
List  of  forgeries  promul- 
gated   by    Collier    and 
others  (1835-1849)         .  367 


II 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CONTROVERSY 


Its  source  ....  370 
Toby  Matthew's  letter  of 

1621  ....  371 
Chief    exponents    of    the 

theory     ....  371 


Its  vogue  in  America 
Extent  of  the  literature 
Absurdity  of  the  theory 


372 
372 
373 


APPENDIX^ 


CONTENTS 


XXI 


III 


THE  YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  THE  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 


Shakespeare  and  South- 
ampton ....  374 

Southampton's  parentage  374 
1573,    Oct.  6.       Southampton's 

birth        .         .         .         .375 

His  education    .         .         .  375 

Recognition  of  South- 
ampton's beauty  in 
youth      ....  377 


His  reluctance  to  marry   .  378 
Intrigue     with     Elizabeth 
Vernon  ....  379 
1598     Southampton's  marriage  .  379 
1601-3     Southampton's    impris- 
onment  ....  380 
Later  career       .         .         .  380 
1624,  Nov.  10.     His  death  .        .  381 


IV 


THE   EARL   OF   SOUTHAMPTON   AS   A   LITERARY   PATRON 


Southampton's   collection 
of  books  .         .         .  382 

References   in   his   letters 
to  poems  and  plays        .  382 

His  love  of  the  theatre       .  383 

Poetic  adulation         .         .  384 
1593     Barnabe  Barnes's  sonnet .  384 


Tom  Nash's  addresses      .  385 
1595     Gervase  Markham's  son- 
net   387 

1598     Florio's  address        .        .  387 
The  congratulations  of  the 

poets  in  1603  .         .         .  387 
Elegies  on  Southampton  .  389 


THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THOMAS  THORPE  AND  'MR.  W.  H.' 


The    publication    of    the 

'Sonnets'  in  1609  .         .  390 
The   text   of    the   dedica- 
tion ....  391 
Publishers'  dedications     .  392 
Thorpe's  early  life     .         .  393 
His     ownership    of     the 
manuscript      of      Mar- 
lowe's Lncan  .        .        .  393 
His     dedicatory    address 
to    Edward    Blount    in 
1600        .        .        .        .394 
Character  of  his  business  .  395 
Shakespeare's     sufferings 

at  publishers'  hands       .  396 
The     use    of    initials    in 


dedications  of  Eliza- 
bethan and  Jacobean 
books      ....  397 

Frequency  of  wishes  for 
'  happiness  '  and  '  eter- 
nity' in  dedicatory 
greetings        .        .        .  398 

Five  dedications  by 
Thorpe  ....  399 

'  W.  H."  signs  dedica- 
tion of  Southwell's 
'  Poems "...  400 

'W.  H.'  and  Mr.  William 
Hall        ....  402 

The  '  onlie  begetter ' 
means  '  only  procurer' .  403 


XXll 


WILLIAM   SHAKESrEARE 


{APPENDIX 


VI 


•MR.    WILLIAM    HERBERT' 


PAGE 

Origin  of  the  notion  that 
'  Mr.  W.  H.'  stands  for 
William  Herbert   .         .  406 

The    Earl    of    Pembroke 


known    only    as    Lord 
Herbert  in  youth   .         .  407 
Thorpe's  mode  of  address- 
ing  the   Earl  of    Pem- 
broke     ....  408 


VII 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  EARL  OF  PEMBROKE 


Shakespeare  with  the  act- 
ing company  at  Wilton 
in  1603    .... 

The  dedication  of  the 
First  Folio  in  1623 

No  suggestion  in  the 
sonnets   of  the  youth's 


411 
412 


identity  with  Pem- 
broke ....  413 
Aubrey's  ignorance  of 
any  relation  between 
Shakespeare  and  Pem- 
broke     .        .        .        „  414 


VIII 


THE   'will'   sonnets 


Elizabethan   meanings   of 

'  will '  .  .  .  . 
Shakespeare's  uses  of  the 

word  .... 
Shakespeare's  puns  on  the 

word  .... 
Arbitrary     and     irregular 

use  of  itaUcs  by  Eliza- 


416 

417 
418 


bethan    and    Jacobean 
printers  ....  419 
The  conceits   of  Sonnets 

cxxxv.-vi.  interpreted  .  420 
Sonnet  cxxxv.  .  .  .  421 
Sonnet  cxxxvi.  .  .  .  422 
Sonnet  cxxxiv.  .  .  .  425 
Sonnet  cxliii.     .        .        .  426 


IX 


the   vogue   of   THE   ELIZABETHAN   SONNET,    I59I-I597 


1557    Wyatt's  and  Surrey's  Son- 


1582 


1591 


1592 


nets  published 
Watson's       Centurie 

Love 
Sidney's     Astrophel 

Stella      . 
Collected       sonnets 

feigned  love   . 
Daniel's  Delia  . 


of 
and 


of 


427 
428 
428 


429 
430 


1592 
1593 
1593 

1593 
1593 
1594 
1594 


Fame  of  Daniel's  sonnets  431 
Constable's  Diana  .  .  431 
Barnabe  Barnes's  sonnets  432 
Watson's  Tears        of 


Fa?tcie     . 
Giles  Fletcher's  Licia 
Lodge's  Phillis . 
Drayton's  Idea  . 
Percy's  Ccelia    . 


433 
433 
433 
434 
435 


APPENDIX]                                 C 

ONT 

ENTJ 

>                                              XXUl 

PAGE 

PAGE 

1594 

Zepkeria     . 

435 

1597 

Robert  Tofte's  Laura       .  438 

1595 

Barnfiold's      sonnets      to 

Sir    William    Alexander's 

Ganymede 

435 

Aurora  ....  438 

IS9S 

Spenser's  Amoretti    . 

435 

Sir        Fulke        Greville's 

1595 

Emaricdulfe 

436 

CcElica    ....  438 

1595 

Sir    John    Davies's    Gul- 

Estimate    of    number    of 

li?ige  Sonnets . 

436 

love-sonnets  issued  be- 

1596 

Linche's  Diella 

437 

tween  1591  and  1597      .  439 

1596 

Griffin's  Fidessa 

437 

II. 

Sonnets  to  patrons,  1591- 

1596 

Thomas   Campion's  son- 

1597        .         .         .         .440 

nets         .         .         .         . 

437 

III. 

Sonnets     on     philosophy 

1596 

William  Smith's  Ckloris  . 

437 

and  religion   .        .        .  440 

X 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   NOTE   ON   THE   SONNET   IN  FRANCE, 
I  550-1600 


Ronsard  ( 1524-1585)  and 
'  La  Pleiade' .         .         .  442 

The  Italian  sonnetteers  of 
the  sixteenth  century  442  n. 

Philippe  Desportes  (1546- 
1606)       .        .         .         .443 

Chief       collections        of 


French  sonnets  pub- 
lished between  1550  and 
1584  .  .  .  .444 
Minor  collections  of 
French  sonnets  pub- 
lished between  1553  and 
1605        ...         .444 


Index 


447 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE  ....  Frontispiece 

From  the  'Droeskoitt'  painting,  now   in  the  Shake- 
speare Memorial  Gallery,  Strat/ord-on-Avon. 

HENRY     WRIOTHESLEY,     Third     Earl     of 

Southampton,  as  a  young  man       .  .     To  face  p.  145 

From  the  painting  at  Welbeck  Abbey. 

SHAKESPEARE'S     AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE 

TO  THE  PURCHASE-DEED   OF  A   HOUSE  IN    BlACK- 

FRIARS,    DATED    MARCH    lO,    1612-3     .  .  .       To  face  p.    267 

From  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the 
Guildhall  Library,  London. 

SHAKESPEARE'S     AUTOGRAPH-SIGNATURE 

TO   A    MORTGAGE-DEED   RELATING  TO  THE   HOUSE 
PURCHASED     BY     HIM     IN     BlACKFRIARS,     DATED 

March  ii,  1612-3 To  face  p.  269 

From  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the 
British  Muse  tun. 

THREE  AU  rOGRAPH-SIGNATURES  severally 

WRITTEN     BY     SHAKESPEARE      ON      THE      THREE 

SHEETS  OF  HIS  WILL To  face  p.  273 

From   the  original  document  at    Somerset    House, 
London. 

WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE  .         .         .         .To  face  p.  295 

Froin  a  plaster-cast  of  the  terra-cotta  bust  7iow  at 
the  Garrick  Club. 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


PARENTAGE  AND  BIRTH 

Shakespeare  came  of  a  family  whose  surname  was 
borne  through  the  middle  ages  by  residents  in  very 
Distribu-  ^^lauy  parts  of  England  —  at  Penrith  in 
tionofthe  Cumberland,  at  Kirkland  and  Doncaster  in 
name.  Yorkshire,    as    well    as    in    nearly   all   the 

midland  counties.  The  surname  had  originally  a 
martial  significance,  implying  capacity  in  the  wield- 
ing of  the  spear.^  Its  first  recorded  holder  is  John 
Shakespeare,  who  in  1279  was  living  at  '  Freyndon,' 
perhaps  Frittenden,  Kent.^  The  great  mediaeval 
guild  of  St.  Anne  at  Knowle,  whose  members  in- 
cluded the  leading  inhabitants  of  Warwickshire,  was 
joined  by  many  Shakespeares  in  the  fifteenth  century.^ 

^  Camden,  Remains,  ed.  1605,  p.  ill;    Verstegan,  Restitution,  1605. 

2  Plac.  Cor.  7  Edw.  I,  Kane;   cf.  Notes  and  Queries,  1st  ser.  xi.  122. 

3  Cf.  the  Register  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Anne  at  Knowle,  ed.  Bickley, 


2  WTLLTAM   SH\KESrEARE 

In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  the  sur- 
name is  found  far  more  frequently  in  Warwickshire 
than  elsewhere.  The  archives  of  no  less  than  twenty- 
four  towns  and  villages  there  contain  notices  of 
Shakespeare  families  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
as  many  as  thirty-four  Warwickshire  towns  or^illages 
were  inhabited  by  Shakespeare  families  in  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Among  them  all  William  was  a 
common  Christian  name.  At  Rowington,  twelve 
miles  to  the  north  of  Stratford,  and  in  the  same 
hundred  of  Barlichway,  one  of  th#  most  prolific 
Shakespeare  families  of  Warwickshire  resided  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  no  less  than  three  Richard 
Shakespeares  of  Rowington,  whose  extant  wills  were 
proved  respectively  in  1560,  1591,  and  1614,  were 
fathers  of  sons  called  William.  At  least  one  other 
William  Shakespeare  was  during  the  period  a  resi- 
dent in  Rowington.  As  a  consequence,  the  poet  has 
been  more  than  once  credited  with  achievements 
which  rightly  belong  to  one  or  other  of  his  numerous 
contemporaries  who  were  identically  named. 

The  poet's  ancestry  cannot  be  defined  with  abso- 
lute certainty.  The  poet's  father,  when  applying  for 
The  poet's  3.  grant  of  arms  in  1 596,  claimed  that  his 
ancestry.  grandfather  (the  poet's  great-grandfather) 
received  for  services  rendered  in  war  a  grant  of  land 
in  Warwickshire  from  Henry  VII. ^  No  precise  con- 
firmation of  this  pretension  has  been  discovered,  and 
it  may  be,  after  the  manner  of  heraldic  genealogy, 
fictitious.  But  there  is  a  probability  that  the  poet 
1  See  p.  189. 


PARENTAGE   AND    BIRTH  3 

came  of  good  yeoman  stock,  and  that  his  ancestors  to 
the  fourth  or  fifth  generation  were  fairly  substantial 
landowners.^  Adam  Shakespeare,  a  tenant  by  military 
service  of  land  at  Baddesley  Clinton  in  1389,  seems 
to  have  been  great-grandfather  of  one  Richard  Shake- 
speareAho  held  land  at  Wroxhall  in  Warwickshire 
during  the  first  thirty-four  years  (at  least)  of  the 
sixteenth  ceijj;ftiry.  Another  Richard  Shakespeare 
who  is  conjectured  to  have  been  nearly  akin  to  the 
Wroxhall  family  was  settled  as  a  farmer  at  Snitter- 
field,  a  villagjh^four  miles  to  the  north  of  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  m  1^28. ^  It  is  probable  that  he  was  the 
poet's  grandfather.  In  1550  he  was  renting  a  mes- 
suage and  land  at  Snitterfield  of  Robert  Arden ; 
he  died  at  the  close  of  1560,  and  on  February  10 
of  the  next  year  letters  of  administration  of  his 
goods,  chattels,  and  debts  were  issued  to  his  son  John 
by  the  Probate  Court  at  Worcester.  His  goods  were 
valued  at  35/.  lys.^  Besides  the  son  John,  Richard 
of  Snitterfield  certainly  had  a  son  Henry ;  while  a 
Thomas    Shakespeare,  a  considerable  landholder  at 

^  Cf.  Times,  October  14,  1895;  ^^o^^^  ^nd  Queries,  8th  ser.  viii. 
501 ;    articles  by  Mrs.  Stopes  in  Genealogical  Magazine,  1897. 

2  Cf.  Hallivvell-Phillipps,  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,  1887, 
ii.  207. 

3  The  purchasing  power  of  money  was  then  eight  times  what  it  is 
now,  and  this  and  other  sums  mentioned  should  be  multiplied  by  eight 
to  compare  them  with  modern  currency  (see  p.  197  «).  The  letters 
of  administration  in  regard  to  Richard  Shakespeare's  estate  are  in  the 
district  registry  of  the  Probate  Court  at  Worcester,  and  were  printed  in 
full  by  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps  in  his  Shakespeare'' s  Tours  (privately 
issued  1887),  pp.  44-5.  They  do  not  appear  in  any  edition  of  Mr. 
Halliwell-Phillipps's  Outlines.  Certified  extracts  appeared  in  AWwaw^i 
Queries,  8th  ser.  xii.  463-4. 


4  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Snitterfield  between  1563  and  1583,  whose  parentage 
is  undetermined,  may  have  been  a  third  son.  The  son 
Henry  remained  all  his  life  at  Snitterfield,  where  he 
engaged  in  farming  with  gradually  diminishing  suc- 
cess ;  he  died  in  embarrassed  circumstances  in  Decem- 
ber 1596.  John,  the  son  who  administered  Richard's 
estate,  was  in  all  likelihood  the  poet's  father. 

About  1 55 1  John  Shakespeare  left  Snitterfield, 
which  was  his  birthplace,  to  seek  a  career  in  the 
The  poet's  neighbouring  borough  of  Stratford-on-Avon. 
father.  There  he  soon  set  up  as  a  trader  in  aK 
manner  of  agricultural  produce.  Corn,  wool,  malt, 
meat,  skins,  and  leather  were  among  the  commodities 
in  which  he  dealt.  Documents  of  a  somewhat  later 
date  often  describe  him  as  a  glover.  Aubrey,  Shake- 
speare's first  biographer,  reported  the  tradition  that  he 
was  a  butcher.  But  though  both  designations  doubt- 
less indicated  important  branches  of  his  business, 
neither  can  be  regarded  as  disclosing  its  full  extent. 
The  land  which  his  family  farmed  at  Snitterfield 
supplied  him  with  his  varied  stock-in-trade.  As  long 
as  his  father  lived  he  seems  to  have  been  a  frequent 
visitor  to  Snitterfield,  and,  like  his  father  and  brothers, 
he  was  until  the  date  of  his  father's  death  occasionally 
designated  a  farmer  or  '  husbandman '  of  that  place. 
But  it  was  with  Stratford-on-Avon  that  his  life  was 
mainly  identified. 

In  April  1 5  52  he  was  living  there  in  Henley  Street, 
a  thoroughfare  leading  to  the  market  town  of  Henley- 
in-Ardcn,  and  he  is  first  mentioned  in  the  borough 
records  as  paying   in  that  month  a  fine  of  twelve- 


PARENTAGE   AND   BIRTH  5 

pence  for  having  a  dirt-heap  in  front  of  his  house. 
His  frequent  appearances  in  the  years  that  follow  as 
His  settle  either  plaintiff  or  defendant  in  suits  heard 
ment  at  in  the  local  court  of  record  for  the  recovery 
trat  or  .  ^^  small  dcbts  suggest  that  he  was  a  keen  man 
of  business.  In  early  life  he  prospered  in  trade,  and 
in  October  1556  purchased  two  freehold  tenements  at 
Stratford  —  one,  with  a  garden,  in  Henley  Street  (it 
adjoins  that  now  known  as  the  poet's  birthplace),  and 
the  other  in  Greenhill  Street  with  a  garden  and  croft. 
Thenceforth  he  played  a  prominent  part  in  municipal 
affairs.  In  1557  he  was  elected  an  ale-taster,  whose 
duty  it  w^as  to  test  the  quality  of  malt  liquors  and 
bread.  About  the  same  time  he  was  elected  a  burgess 
or  town  councillor,  and  in  September  1558,  and  again 
on  October  6,  1559,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the 
four  petty  constables  by  a  vote  of  the  jury  of  the 
court-leet.  Twice  —  ini559and  1561 — hewaschosen 
one  of  the  affeerors  —  officers  appointed  to  determine 
the  fines  for  those  offences  which  were  punishable 
arbitrarily,  and  for  which  no  express  penalties  were 
prescribed  by  statute.  In  1561  he  was  elected  one  of 
the  two  chamberlains  of  the  borough,  an  office  of 
responsibility  which  he  held  for  two  years.  He 
delivered  his  second  statement  of  account  to  the  cor- 
poration in  January  1564.  When  attesting  docu- 
ments he  occasionally  made  his  mark,  but  there  is 
evidence  in  the  Stratford  archives  that  he  could  write 
with  facility ;  and  he  was  credited  with  financial  apti- 
tude. The  municipal  accounts,  which  were  checked 
bv  tallies  and  counters,  were  audited  bv  him  after  he 


6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ceased  to  be  chamberlain,   and  he  more  than  once 
advanced  small  sums  of  money  to  the  corporation. 

With  characteristic  shrewdness  he  chose  a  wife  of 
assured  fortune  —  Mary,  youngest  daughter  of  Robert 
Arden,  a  wealthy  farmer  of  Wilmcote  in  the  parish  of 
Aston  Cantlowe,  near  Stratford.  The  Arden  family 
The  poet's  in  its  chicf  branch,  which  was  settled  at  Park- 
mother.  \iq}\,  Warwickshire,  ranked  with  the  most 
influential  of  the  county.  Robert  Arden,  a  progenitor 
of  that  branch,  was  sheriff  of  Warwickshire  and 
Leicestershire  in  1438  (16  Hen.  VI),  and  this  sheriff's 
direct  descendant,  Edward  Arden,  who  was  himself 
high  sheriff  of  Warwickshire  in  1575,  was  executed 
in  1583  for  alleged  complicity  in  a  Roman  Catholic 
plot  against  the  life  of  Queen  Elizabeth.^  John 
Shakespeare's  wife  belonged  to  a  humbler  branch  of 
the  family,  and  there  is  no  trustworthy  evidence  to 
determine  the  exact  degree  of  kinship  between  the 
two  branches.  Her  grandfather,  Thomas  Arden,  pur- 
chased in  1 501  an  estate  at  Snitterfield,  which  passed, 
with  other  property,  to  her  father  Robert ;  John 
Shakespeare's  father,  Richard,  was  one  of  this  Robert 
Arden's  Snitterfield  tenants.  By  his  first  wife,  whose 
name  is  not  known,  Robert  Arden  had  seven  daughters, 
of  whom  all  but  two  married;  John  Shakespeare's  wife 
seems  to  have  been  the  youngest.  Robert  Arden's 
second  wife,  Agnes  or  Anne,  widow  of  John  Hill 
{d.  1545),  a  substantial  farmer  of  Bearley,  survived 
him  ;  but  by  her  he  had  no  issue.  When  he  died  at 
the  end  of  1556,  he  owned  a  farmhouse  at  Wilmcote 

^  French,  Geiicalogica  Shakespeareana,  pp.  458  seq. ;  cf.  p.  191  infra. 


PARENTAGE  AND    BIRTH  7 

and  many  acres,  besides  some  hundred  acres  at 
Snitterfield,  with  two  farmhouses  which  he  let  out 
to  tenants.  The  post-mortem  inventory  of  his  goods, 
which  was  made  on  December  9,  1556,  shows  that 
he  had  lived  in  comfort ;  his  house  was  adorned 
by  as  many  as  eleven  'painted  cloths,'  which  then 
did  duty  for  tapestries  among  the  middle  class. 
The  exordium  of  his  will,  which  was  drawn  up  on 
November  24,  1556,  and  proved  on  December  16 
following,  indicates  that  he  was  an  observant  Catholic. 
For  his  two  youngest  daughters,  Alice  and  Mary,  he 
showed  especial  affection  by  nominating  them  his 
executors.  Mary  received  not  only  6/.  13^'.  4d.  in 
money,  but  the  fee-simple  of  Asbies,  his  chief  pro- 
perty at  Wilmcote,  consisting  of  a  house  with  some 
fifty  acres  of  land.  She  also  acquired,  under  an 
earlier  settlement,  an  interest  in  two  messuages  at 
Snitterfield.^  But,  although  she  was  well  provided 
with  worldly  goods,  she  was  apparently  without  educa- 
tion ;  several  extant  documents  bear  her  mark,  and 
there  is  no  proof  that  she  could  sign  her  name. 

John  Shakespeare's  marriage  with  Mary  Arden 
doubtless  took  place  at  Aston  Cantlowe,  the  parish 
church  of  Wilmcote,  in  the  autumn  of  1557  (the 
church  registers  begin  at  a  later  date).  On  Septem- 
ber 15,  1558,  his  first  child,  a  daughter,  Joan,  was 
baptised  in  the  church  of  Stratford.  A  second  child, 
another  daughter,  Margaret,  was  baptised  on  Decem- 
ber 2,  1562  ;  but  both  these  children  died  in  infancy. 
The  poet  William,  the  first  son  and  third  child,  was 

1  Hallivvell-Phillipps,  ii.  179. 


8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

born  on  April  22  or  23,  1564.  The  latter  date  is 
generally  accepted  as  his  birthday,  mainly  (it  would 
The  oefs  ^PP^ar)  on  the  ground  that  it  was  the  day 
birth  and  of  his  death.  There  is  no  positive  evidence 
apism.  ^^  ^j^^  subject,  but  the  Stratford  parish 
registers  attest  that  he  was  baptised  on  April  26. 

Some  doubt  is  justifiable  as  to  the  ordinarily 
accepted  scene  of  his  birth.  Of  two  adjoining  houses 
Alleged  forming  a  detached  building  on  the  north 
birthplace,  gj^jg  ^f  Henley  Street,  that  to  the  east  was 
purchased  by  John  Shakespeare  in  1556,  but  there  is 
no  evidence  that  he  owned  or  occupied  the  house  to 
the  west  before  1575.  Yet  this  western  house  has 
been  known  since  1759  as  the  poet's  birthplace,  and 
a  room  on  the  first  floor  is  claimed  as  that  in  which 
he  was  born.^  The  two  houses  subsequently  came 
by  bequest  of  the  poet's  granddaughter  to  the  family 
of  the  poet's  sister,  Joan  Hart,  and  while  the  eastern 
tenement  was  let  out  to  strangers  for  more  than 
two  centuries,  and  by  them  converted  into  an  inn, 
the  'birthplace'  was  until  1806  occupied  by  the 
Harts,  who  latterly  carried  on  there  the  trade  of 
butcher.  The  fact  of  its  long  occupancy  by  the 
poet's  collateral  descendants  accounts  for  the  identi- 
fication of  the  western  rather  than  the  eastern  tene- 
ment with  his  birthplace.  Both  houses  were  pur- 
chased in  behalf  of  subscribers  to  a  public  fund  in 
1846,  and,  after  extensive  restoration,  were  converted 
into  a  single  domicile  for  the  purposes  of  a  public 
museum.     They    were   presented    under   a   deed    of 

1  Cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Letter  to  Elze,  1888. 


PARENTAGE  AND   BIRTH  9 

trust  to  the  Corporation  of  Stratford  in  1866.  Much 
of  the  Elizabethan  timber  and  stonework  survives, 
but  a  cellar  under  the  '  birthplace  '  is  the  only  por- 
tion which  remains  as  it  was  at  the  date  of  the  poet's 
birth.i 

1  Cf.  Documents  and  Sketches  in  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  377-99. 


10  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


II 

CHILDHOOD,  EDUCATION,   AND  MARRIAGE 

In  July  1564,  when  William  was  three  months  old, 
the  plague  raged  with  unwonted  vehemence  at  Strat- 
The  father  ^^rd,  and  his  father  liberally  contributed  to 
in  munici-  the  relief  of  its  poverty-stricken  victims, 
pa  o  ce.  Portune  still  favoured  him.  On  July  4,  1565, 
he  reached  the  dignity  of  an  alderman.  From  1567 
onwards  he  was  accorded  in  the  corporation  archives 
the  honourable  prefix  of  'Mr.'  At  Michaelmas  1568 
he  attained  the  highest  office  in  the  corporation  gift, 
that  of  bailiff,  and  during  his  year  of  office  the  corpo- 
ration for  the  first  time  entertained  actors  at  Stratford. 
The  Queen's  Company  and  the  Earl  of  Worcester's 
Company  each  received  from  John  Shakespeare  an 
official  welcome.^    On  September  5,  1571,  he  was  chief 

1  The  Rev.  Thomas  Carter,  in  Shakespeare,  Puritan  and  Recusant, 
1897,  has  endeavoured  to  show  that  John  Shakespeare  was' a  puritan 
in  religious  matters,  inclining  to  nonconformity.  He  deduces  this 
inference  from  the  fact  that,  at  the  period  of  his  prominent  association 
with  the  municipal  government  of  Stratford,  the  corporation  ordered 
images  to  be  defaced  (1562-3)  and  ecclesiastical  vestments  to  l^e  sold 
(1571).  These  entries  merely  prove  that  the  aldermen  and  councillors 
of  Stratford  strictly  conformed  to  the  new  religion  as  by  law  established 
in  the  first  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  Nothing  can  be  deduced  from 
them  in  regard  to  the  private  religious  opinions  of  John  Shakespeare. 
The  circumstance  that  he  was  the  first  bailiff  to  encourage  actors  to 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  II 

alderman,  a  post  which  he  retained  till  September  30 
the  following  year.  In  1573  Alexander  Webbe,  the 
husband  of  his  wife's  sister  Agnes,  made  him  overseer 
of  his  will ;  in  1 575  he  bought  two  houses  in  Stratford, 
one  of  them  doubtless  the  alleged  birthplace  in  Henley 
Street;  in  1576  he  contributed  twelvepence  to  the 
beadle's  salary.  But  after  Michaelmas  1572  he  took 
a  less  active  part  in  municipal  affairs ;  he  grew 
irregular  in  his  attendance  at  the  council  meetings, 
and  signs  were  soon  apparent  that  his  luck  had 
turned.  In  1578  he  was  unable  to  pay,  with  his 
colleagues,  either  the  sum  of  fourpence  for  the  relief 
of  the  poor  or  his  contribution  '  towards  the  furniture 
of  three  pikemen,  two  bellmen,  and  one  archer '  who 
were  sent  by  the  corporation  to  attend  a  muster  of  the 
trained  bands  of  the  county. 

Meanwhile  his  family  was  increasing.  Four  chil- 
dren besides  the  poet  —  three  sons,  Gilbert  (baptised 
Brothers  October  13,  1566),  Richard  (baptised  March 
and  sisters,  j  j^  IS74),  and  Edmund  (baptised  May  3, 
1580),  with  a  daughter  Joan  (baptised  April  15,  1569) 
—  reached  maturity.  A  daughter  Ann  was  baptised 
September  28,  1571,  and  was  buried  on  April  4,  1579. 
To  meet  his  growing  liabilities,  the  father  borrowed 
money  from  his  wife's  kinsfolk,  and  he  and  his  wife 

visit  Stratford  is,  on  the  other  hand,  conclusive  proof  that  his  religion 
was  not  that  of  the  contemporary  puritan,  whose  hostility  to  all  forms  of 
dramatic  representations  was  one  of  his  most  persistent  characteristics. 
The  Elizaljethan  puritans,  too,  according  to  Guillim's  Display  of 
Heraldrie  (1610),  regarded  coat-armour  with  abhorrence,  yet  John 
Shakespeare  with  his  son  made  persistent  application  for  a  grant  of 
arms  to  the  College  of  Arms.     (Cf.  infra,  pp.  186  seq.) 


12  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

mortgaged,  on  November  14,  1578,  Asbies,  her 
valuable  property  at  Wilmc.otc,  for  40/.  to  Edmund 
Lambert  of  Barton-on-the-Heath,  who  had  married 
her  sister,  Joan  Arden.  Lambert  was  to  receive  no 
interest  on  his  loan,  but  was  to  take  the  '  rents  and 
profits '  of  the  estate.  Asbies  was  thereby  alienated 
for  ever.  Next  year,  on  October  15,  1579,  John  and 
his  wife  made  over  to  Robert  Webbe,  doubtless  a 
relative  of  Alexander  Webbe,  for  the  sum  apparently 
of  40/.,  his  wife's  property  at  Snitterfield.^ 

John  Shakespeare  obviously  chafed  under  the 
humiliation  of  having  parted,  although  as  he  hoped 
The  only  temporarily,  with  his  wife's  property  of 

financial  Asbies,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1580  he  offered 
difficulties,  to  pay  off  the  mortgage ;  but  his  brother-in- 
law,  Lambert,  retorted  that  other  sums  were  owing, 
and  he  would  accept  all  or  none.  The  negotiation, 
which  was  the  beginning  of  much  litigation,  thus 
proved  abortive.  Through  1585  and  1586  a  creditor, 
John  Brown,  was  embarrassingly  importunate,  and, 
after  obtaining  a  writ  of  distraint.  Brown  informed 
the  local  court  that  the  debtor  had  no  goods  on  which 
distraint  could  be  levied.^  On  September  6,  1586, 
John  was  deprived  of  his  alderman's  gown,  on  the 
ground  of  his  long  absence  from  the  council  meetings.^ 

1  The  sum  is  stated  to  be  4/.  in  one  document  (Halliwell-Phillipps, 
ii.  176)  and  40/.  in  another  (^ib.  p.  179);  the  latter  is  more  likely  to  be 
correct.  ^  I/>.  ii.  238. 

3  Efforts  recently  made  to  assign  the  embarrassments  of  Shake- 
speare's father  to  another  John  Shakespeare  of  Stratford  deserve  little 
attention.  The  second  John  Shakespeare  or  Shakspere  (as  his  name  is 
usually  spelt)  came  to  Stratford  as  a  young  man  in  1584,  and  was  for  ten 
years  a  well-to-do  shoemaker  in  Bridge  Street,  filling  the  office  of  Master 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  1 3 

Happily  John  Shakespeare  was  at  no  expense  for 

the  education  of  his  four  sons.     They  were  entitled 

to  free  tuition  at  the  grammar  school  of   Stratford, 

which  was   reconstituted   on   a  mediceval  foundation 

by   Edward  VI.     The  eldest  son,   William, 

Education.  111  1         i     • 

probably  entered  the  school  n\  1571,  when 
Walter  Roche  was  master,  and  perhaps  he  knew  some- 
thing of  Thomas  Hunt,  who  succeeded  Roche  in  1577. 
The  instruction  that  he  received  was  mainly  confined 
to  the  Latin  language  and  literature.  From  the  Latin 
accidence,  boys  of  the  period,  at  schools  of  the  type 
of  that  at  Stratford,  were  led,  through  conversation 
books  like  the  '  Sentential  Pueriles '  and  Lily's 
grammar,  to  the  perusal  of  such  authors  as  Seneca, 
Terence,  Cicero,  Virgil,  Plautus,  Ovid,  and  Horace. 
The  eclogues  of  the  popular  renaissance  poet,  Man- 
tuanus,  were  often  preferred  to  Virgil's  for  beginners. 
The  rudiments  of  Greek  were  occasionally  taught 
in  Elizabethan  grammar  schools  to  very  promising 
pupils ;  but  such  coincidences  as  have  been  detected 
between  expressions  in  Greek  plays  and  in  Shake- 
speare seem  due  to  accident,  and  not  to  any  study, 
either  at  school  or  elsewhere,  of  the  Athenian  drama.^ 

of  the  Shoemakers'  Company  in  1592  —  a  certain  sign  of  pecuniary 
stability.  He  left  Stratford  in  1594  (of.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  137-40). 
1  James  Russell  Lowell,  who  noticed  some  close  parallels  between 
expressions  of  Shakespeare  and  those  of  the  Greek  tragedians,  hazarded 
the  suggestion  that  Shakespeare  may  have  studied  the  ancient  drama  in 
a  Grace  el  Latine  edition.  I  believe  Lowell's  parallelisms  to  be 
no  more  than  curious  accidents  —  proofs  of  consanguinity  of  spirit, 
not  of  any  indebtedness  on  Shakespeare's  part.  In  the  Electra  of 
Sophocles,  which  is  akin  in  its  leading  motive  to  Hamlet,  the  Chorus 
consoles  Electra  for  the  supposed  death  of  Orestes  with  the  same  com- 


14  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Dr.  Farmer  enunciated  in  his  '  Essay  on  Shake- 
speare's Learning'  (1767) the  theory  that  Shakespeare 
knew  no  language  but  his  own,  and  owed  whatever 
knowledge  he  displayed  of  the  classics  and  of  Italian 
and  French  literature  to  English  translations.  But 
several  of  the  books  in  French  and  Italian  whence 
Shakespeare  derived  the  plots  of  his  dramas  —  Belle- 
forest's  '  Histoires  Tragiques,'  Ser  Giovanni's  *  II 
Pecorone,'  and  Cinthio's  '  Hecatommithi,'  for  example 

monplace  argument  as  that  with  which  Hamlet's  mother  and  uncle  seek 
to  console  him.     In  Elecira  are  the  lines  1171-3: 

Qvr\Tov  Tri<t)VKas  TrarpSs,   HXeVrpa,  (ppdvei' 
QvTjTos  5     OpiffTTjs  ■   ci)&T€  fiT]  \lav  crreve. 
Ilacnv  yap  ijfuv  tovt  d<p€iX€Tat  TraOeiv 

(».<•.  '  Remember,  Electra,  your  father  whence  you  sprang  is  dead. 
Dead,  too,  is  Orestes.  Wherefore  grieve  not  overmuch,  for  by  all  of  us 
has  this  debt  of  suffering  to  be  paid '  ) .  In  Hamlet  ( I .  ii.  72  seq.)  are  the 
familiar  sentences : 

Thou  know'st  'tis  common  ;  all  that  live  must  die.  .  .  . 
But  you  must  know,  your  father  lost  a  father; 
That  father  lost,  lost  his  .  .  .     But  to  persever 
In  obstinate  condolement  is  a  course 
Of  impious  stubbornness. 

Cf.  Sophocles's  CEdipus  Coloneiis,  880:  Tois  rot  8iKaioi.s  x<^'  i^paxt/s  viKq. 
piiyav  ('  In  a  just  cause  the  weak  vanquishes  the  strong,'  Jebb),  and 
2  Henry  VI,  iii.  233,  '  Thrice  is  he  armed  that  hath  his  quarrel  just.' 
Shakespeare's '  prophetic  soul '  in  Hamlet  (l.  v.  40)  and  the  Sonnets  (cvii. 
i)  maybe  matched  by  the  ■Kpb\xa.vTL'f  Qvp.h%  of  Euripides's  Andromache, 
1075;  and  Hamlet's  '  sea  of  troubles '  (ill.  i.  59)  by  the  Ka.Kb}v  veXayos 
of  .-Eschylus's  Perscc,  443.  Among  all  the  creations  of  Shakespearean 
and  Greek  drama,  Lady  Macbeth  and  ^'Eschylus's  Clytemnestra,  who 
'  in  man's  counsels  tore  no  woman's  heart '  {yvva.iKo%  dvdpd^ovXov 
i\irli;^ov  K^ap,  Agamemnoti,  ii),  most  closely  resemble  each  other.  But 
a  study  of  the  points  of  resemblance  attests  no  knowledge  of  /Eschylus 
on  Shakespeare's  part,  but  merely  the  close  community  of  tragic  genius 
that  subsisted  between  the  two  poets. 


CHILDHOOD,    EDUCATION,   AND    MARRIAGE         1 5 

—  were  not  accessible  to  him  in  English  translations; 
and  on  more  general  grounds  the  theory  of  his  igno- 
rance is  adequately  confuted.  A  boy  with  Shake- 
speare's exceptional  alertness  of  intellect,  during 
whose  schooldays  a  training  in  Latin  classics  lay 
within  reach,  could  hardly  lack  in  future  years  all 
means  of  access  to  the  literature  of  France  and  Italy. 
With  the  Latin  and  French  languages,  indeed, 
and  with  many  Latin  poets  of  the  school  curriculum, 
Shakespeare  in  his  writings  openly  acknowledged  his 
acquaintance.  In  '  Henry  V  '  the  dialogue  in  many 
scenes  is  carried  on  in  French,  which  is  grammatically 
accurate  if  not  idiomatic.  In  the  mouth  of  his  school- 
masters, Holofernes  in  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  and 
™        .,     Sir    Hugh    Evans    in    '  Merrv    Wives    of 

The  poet  s  °  ^        _ 

classical  Windsor,'  Shakespeare  placed  Latin  phrases 
equipment.  (jj-g^^^,j^  directly  from  Lily's  grammar,  from 
the  'Sententise  Pueriles,'  and  from  'the  good  old 
Mantuan.'  The  influence  of  Ovid,  especially  the 
'Metamorphoses,'  was  apparent  throughout  his  earliest 
literary  work,  both  poetic  and  dramatic,  and  is  dis- 
cernible in  the  '  Tempest,'  his  latest  play  (v.  i.  33  seq.). 
In  the  Bodleian  Library  there  is  a  copy  of  the  Aldine 
edition  of  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses'  (1502)  and  on 
the  title  is  the  signature  '  W"\  Sh**.,'  which  experts 
have  declared  —  not  quite  conclusively  —  to  be  a 
genuine  autograph  of  the  poet.^  Ovid's  Latin  text 
was  certainly  not  unfamiliar  to  him,  but  his  closest 
adaptations  of  Ovid's  '  Metamorphoses '  often  reflect 
the  phraseology  of  the   popular  English  version  by 

1  Macray,  Annals  of  the  Bodleian  Library,  1890,  pp.  379  seq. 


1 6  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Arthur  Golding,  of  which  some  seven  editions  were 
issued  between  1565  and  1597.  From  Plautus 
Shakespeare  drew  the  plot  of  the  '  Comedy  of  Errors,' 
but  it  is  just  possible  that  Plautus's  comedies,  too, 
were  accessible  in  English.  Shakespeare  had  no  title 
to  rank  as  a  classical  scholar,  and  he  did  not  disdain 
a  liberal  use  of  translations.  His  lack  of  exact 
scholarship  fully  accounts  for  the  '  small  Latin  and 
less  Greek '  with  which  he  was  credited  by  his 
scholarly  friend,  Ben  Jonson.  But  Aubrey's  report 
that  '  he  understood  Latin  pretty  well '  need  not  be 
contested,  and  his  knowledge  of  French  may  be 
estimated  to  have  equalled  his  knowledge  of  Latin, 
while  he  doubtless  possessed  just  sufficient  acquaint- 
ance with  Italian  to  enable  him  to  discern  the  drift 
of  an  Italian  poem  or  novel.^ 

Of  the  few  English  books  accessible  to  him  in  his 
schooldays,  the  chief  was  the  English  Bible,  either 
in  the  popular  Genevan  version,  first  issued  in  a  com- 
plete form  in  1560,  or  in  the  bishops'  revision  of  1568, 
which  the  Authorised  Version  of  16 11  closely  followed. 
References  to  scriptural  characters  and  incidents  are 
not  conspicuous  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  but  such  as 
Shake  they  are,  they  are  drawn  from  all  parts  of 
speare  and  the  Bible,  and  indicate  that  general  ac- 
^'  quaintance  with  the  narrative  of  both  Old 
and  New  Testaments  which  a  clever  boy  would  be 
certain  to  acquire  either  in  the  schoolroom  or  at 
church  on  Sundays.     Shakespeare  quotes  or  adapts 

^  Cf.     Spencer    Baynes,  '  What    Shakespeare  learnt  at  School,'  in 
Shakespeare  Studies,  1894,  pp.  147  seq. 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE  1 7 

biblical  phrases  with  far  greater  frequency  than  he 
makes  allusion  to  episodes  in  biblical  history.  But 
many  such  phrases  enjoyed  proverbial  currency,  and 
others  which  were  more  recondite  were  borrowed 
from  Holinshed's  '  Chronicles '  and  secular  works 
whence  he  drew  his  plots.  As  a  rule  his  use  of  scrip- 
tural phraseology,  as  of  scriptural  history,  suggests 
youthful  reminiscence  and  the  assimilative  tendency 
of  the  mind  in  a  stage  of  early  development  rather 
than  close  and  continuous  study  of  the  Bible  in  adult 
life.i 

Shakespeare  was  a  schoolboy  in  July  1575,  when 
Queen  Elizabeth  made  a  progress  through  Warwick- 
shire on  a  visit  to  her  favourite,  the  Earl  of  Leicester, 
at  his  castle  of  Kenilworth.  References  have  been 
detected  in  Oberon's  vision  in  Shakespeare's  '  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream  '  (11.  ii.  148-68)  to  the  fantastic 
pageants  and  masques  with  which  the  Queen  during 
her  stay  was  entertained  in  Kenilworth  Park.  Lei- 
cester's residence  was  only  fifteen  miles  from  Stratford, 
and  it  is  possible  that  Shakespeare  went  thither  with 
his  father  to  witness  some  of  the  open-air  festivities ; 
but  two  full  descriptions  which  were  published  in 
1576,  in  pamphlet  form,  gave  Shakespeare  knowledge 
of  all  that  took  place.^  Shakespeare's  opportunities  of 
recreation  outside  Stratford  were  in  any  case  restricted 
during  his  schooldays.      His  father's  financial  difficul- 

^  Bishop  Charles  Wordsworth,  in  his  Shakespeare' s  Knowledge  and 
Use  of  the  Bible  (4th  ed.  1892),  gives  a  long  list  of  passages  for  which 
Shakespeare  may  have  been  indebted  to  the  Bible.  But  the  Bishop's 
deductions  as  to  the  strength  of  Shakespeare's  piety  are  strained. 

-  See  p.  160  infra. 
C 


1 8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ties  grew  steadily,  and  they  caused  his  removal  from 
school  at  an  unusually  early  age.  Probably  in  1577, 
With-  when  he  was  thirteen,  he  was  enlisted  by  his 

from^  father  in  an  effort  to  restore  his  decaying  for- 

schooi,  tunes.  '  I  have  been  told  heretofore,'  wrote 
Aubrey, '  by  some  of  the  neighbours  that  when  he  was  a 
boy  he  exercised  his  father's  trade,'  which,  according  to 
the  writer,  was  that  of  a  butcher.  It  is  possible  that 
John's  ill-luck  at  the  period  compelled  him  to  confine 
himself  to  this  occupation,  which  in  happier  days 
formed  only  one  branch  of  his  business.  His  son  may 
have  been  formally  apprenticed  to  him.  An  early  Strat- 
ford tradition  describes  him  as '  a  butcher's  apprentice.'  ^ 
'  When  he  kill'd  a  calf,'  Aubrey  proceeds  less  convin- 
cingly, '  he  would  doe  it  in  a  high  style  and  make  a 
speech.  There  was  at  that  time  another  butcher's 
son  in  this  towne,  that  was  held  not  at  all  inferior  to 
him  for  a  naturall  witt,  his  acquaintance,  and  coeta- 
nean,  but  dyed  young.' 

At  the  end  of  1582  Shakespeare,  when  little  more 
than  eighteen  and  a  half  years  old,  took  a  step  which 
The  poet's  was  little  Calculated  to  lighten  his  father's 
marriage,  anxieties.  Hc  married.  His  wife,  accord- 
ing to  the  inscription  on  her  tombstone,  was  his 
senior  by  eight  years.  Rowe  states  that  she  '  was  the 
daughter  of  one  Hathaway,  said  to  have  been  a  sub- 
stantial yeoman  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Stratford.' 

On  September  i,  1581,  Richard  Hathaway,  'hus- 
bandman '  of  Shottery,  a  hamlet  in  the  parish  of  Old 

1  Notes    of    John    Duwdall,   a    tourist   in   Warwickshire   in    1693 
(published  in  1838). 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE         1 9 

Stratford,  made  his  will,  which  was  proved  on  July  9, 
1582,  and  is  now  preserved  at  Somerset  House. 
D-  .     .       His    house    and    land,    'two    and    a    half 

Richard  ' 

Hathaway  virgatcs,'  had  been  long  held  in  copyhold 
^^^'  by  his  family,  and  he  died  in  fairly  pro- 
sperous circumstances.  His  wife  Joan,  the  chief 
legatee,  was  directed  to  carry  on  the  farm  with  the  aid 
of  her  eldest  son,  Bartholomew,  to  whom  a  share  in 
its  proceeds  was  assigned.  Six  other  children  — three 
sons  and  three  daughters  —  received  sums  of  money; 
Agnes,  the  eldest  daughter,  and  Catherine,  the  second 
daughter,  were  each  allotted  6/.  i3j-.  4d.,  'to  be  paid 
at  the  day  of  her  marriage,'  a  phrase  common  in  wills 
Anne  of  the  pcriod.     Anne  and  Agnes  were  in  the 

Hathaway,  sixteenth  ccutury  alternative  spellings  of  the 
same  Christian  name ;  and  there  is  little  doubt  that 
the  daughter  'Agnes'  of  Richard  Hathaway's  will  be- 
came, within  a  few  months  of  Richard  Hathaway's 
death,  Shakespeare's  wife. 

The  house  at  Shottery,  now  known  as  Anne 
Hathaway's  cottage,  and  reached  from  Stratford  by 
field-paths,  undoubtedly  once  formed  part  of  Richard 
Anne  Hathaway's  farmhouse,  and,  despite  nume- 

wav's^cot-  ^°^^  alterations  and  renovations,  still  pre- 
tage.  serves  many  features  of  a  thatched  farmhouse 

of  the  Elizabethan  period.  The  house  remained  in 
the  Hathaway  family  till  1838,  although  the  male  line 
became  extinct  in  1746.  It  was  purchased  in  behalf 
of  the  public  by  the  Birthplace  trustees  in  1892. 

No  record  of  the  solemnisation  of  Shakespeare's 
marriage  survives.     Although  the  parish  of  Stratford 


20  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

included  Shottcry,  and  thus  both  bride  and  bride- 
groom were  parishioners,  the  Stratford  parish  register 
is  silent  on  the  subject.  A  local  tradition,  which 
seems  to  have  come  into  being  during  the  present 
century,  assigns  the  ceremony  to  the  neighbouring 
hamlet  or  chapelry  of  Luddington,  of  which  neither 
the  chapel  nor  parish  registers  now  exist.  But  one 
important  piece  of  documentary  evidence  directly 
bearing  on  the  poet's  matrimonial  venture  is  accessible. 
In  the  registry  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  (Worcester) 
a  deed  is  extant  wherein  Fulk  Sandells  and  John 
Richardson,  '  husbandmen  of  Stratford,'  bound  them- 
selves in  the  bishop's  consistory  court,  on  November 
28,  1582,  in  a  surety  of  40/.,  to  free  the  bishop  of  all 
liability  should  a  lawful  impediment  —  '  by.  reason  of 
The  bond  any  precontract '  [_t.e.  with  a  third  party]  or 
tmpedl-  consanguinity  —  be  subsequently  disclosed  to 
ments.  imperil  the  validity  of  the  marriage,  then  in 
contemplation,  of  William  Shakespeare  with  Anne 
Hathaway.  On  the  assumption  that  no  such  impedi- 
ment was  known  to  exist,  and  provided  that  Anne 
obtained  the  consent  of  her  'friends,'  the  marriage 
might  proceed  '  with  once  asking  of  the  bannes  of 
matrimony  betwene  them.' 

Bonds  of  similar  purport,  although  differing  in 
significant  details,  are  extant  in  all  diocesan  registries 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  They  were  obtainable  on 
the  payment  of  a  fee  to  the  bishop's  commissary,  and 
had  the  effect  of  expediting  the  marriage  ceremony 
while  protecting  the  clergy  from  the  consequences  of 
any  possible  breach  of  canonical  law.   But  they  were  not 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,   AND   MARRIAGE         21 

common,  and  it  was  rare  for  persons  in  the  compara- 
tively humble  position  in  life  of  Anne  Hathaway  and 
young  Shakespeare  to  adopt  such  cumbrous  formalities 
when  there  was  always  available  the  simpler,  less  ex- 
pensive, and  more  leisurely  method  of  marriage  by 
'thrice  asking  of  the  banns.'  Moreover,  the  wording 
of  the  bond  which  was  drawn  before  Shakespeare's 
marriage  differs  in  important  respects  from  that 
adopted  in  all  other  known  examples.^  In  the  latter 
it  is  invariably  provided  that  the  marriage  shall  not 
take  place  without  the  consent  of  the  parents  or 
governors  of  both  bride  and  bridegroom.  In  the  case 
of  the  marriage  of  an  *  infant '  bridegroom  the  formal 
consent  of  his  parents  was  absolutely  essential  to 
strictly  regular  procedure,  although  clergymen  might 
be  found  who  were  ready  to  shut  their  eyes  to  the 
facts  of  the  situation  and  to  run  the  risk  of  solemnis- 
ing the  marriage  of  an  '  infant '  without  inquiry  as  to 
the  parents'  consent.  The  clergyman  who  united 
Shakespeare  in  wedlock  to  Anne  Hathaway  was 
obviously  of  this  easy  temper.  Despite  the  circum- 
stance that  Shakespeare's  bride  was  of  full  age  and  he 
himself  was  by  nearly  three  years  a  minor,  the  Shake- 
speare bond  stipulated  merely  for  the  consent  of  the 
bride's  'friends,'  and  ignored  the  bridegroom's  pa- 
rents altogether.  Nor  was  this  the  only  irregularity 
in  the  document.     In  other  pre-matrimonial  covenants 

^  These  conclusions  are  drawn  from  an  examination  of  like  docu- 
ments in  the  Worcester  diocesan  registry.  Many  formal  declarations 
of  consent  on  the  part  of  parents  to  their  children's  marriages  are  also 
extant  there  among  the  sixteenth-century  archives. 


22  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  kind  the  name  either  of  the  bridegroom  him- 
self or  of  the  bridegroom's  father  figures  as  one  of  the 
two  sureties,  and  is  mentioned  first  of  the  two.  Had  the 
usual  form  been  followed,  Shakespeare's  father  would 
have  been  the  chief  party  to  the  transaction  in  behalf 
of  his  '  infant '  son.  But  in  the  Shakespeare  bond 
the  sole  sureties,  Sandells  and  Richardson,  were  farm- 
ers of  Shottery,  the  bride's  native  place.  Sandells 
was  a  '  supervisor '  of  the  will  of  the  bride's  father, 
who  there  describes  him  as  '  my  trustie  friende  and 
neighbour.' 

The  prominence  of  the  Shottery  husbandmen  in 
the  negotiations  preceding  Shakespeare's  marriage 
suggests  the  true  position  of  affairs.  Sandells  and 
Richardson,  representing  the  lady's  family,  doubtless 
secured  the  deed  on  their  own  initiative,  so  that 
Shakespeare  might  have  small  opportunity  of  evad- 
ing a  step  which  his  intimacy  with  their  friend's 
daughter  had  rendered  essential  to  her  reputation. 
The  wedding  probably  took  place,  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  bridegroom's  parents,  — it  may  be  without 
their  knowledge,  —  soon  after  the  signing  of  the 
deed.  Within  six  months  —  in  May  1583  —  a  daugh- 
Birthofa  tcr  was  bom  to  the  poet,  and  was  baptised 
daughter,  jj^  ^-j^g  name  of  Susanna  at  Stratford  parish 
church  on  the  26th. 

Shakespeare's  apologists  have  endeavoured  to 
show  that  the  public  betrothal  or  formal  '  troth-plight ' 
which  was  at  the  time  a  common  prelude  to  a  wed- 
ding carried  with  it  all  the  privileges  of  marriage. 
But  neither  Shakespeare's  detailed  description  of  a 


CHILDHOOD,   EDUCATION,  AND   MARRIAGE         23 

betrothal  ^  nor  of    the  solemn  verbal    contract  that 

ordinarily  preceded   marriage   lends  the    contention 

Formal        much  Support.     Moreover,  the  whole  circum- 

betrothai      stances   of   the  case   render   it   highly  im- 
probably .    ■'    . 
dispensed     probable  that    Shakespeare    and   his   bride 

^"^-  submitted  to  the  formal  preliminaries  of  a 

betrothal.  In  that  ceremony  the  parents  of  both  con- 
tracting parties  invariably  played  foremost  parts, 
but  the  wording  of  the  bond  precludes  the  assumption 
that  the  bridegroom's  parents  were  actors  in  any 
scene  of  the  hurriedly  planned  drama  of  his  marriage. 
A  difficulty  has  been  imported  into  the  narration 
of  the  poet's  matrimonial  affairs  by  the  assumption 
of  his  identity  with  one  'William  Shakespeare,'  to 
whom,  according  to  an  entry  in  the  Bishop  of  Wor- 
cester's register,  a  license  was  issued  on  November  27, 
1582  (the  day  before  the  signing  of  the  Hathaway 
bond),  authorising  his  marriage  with  Anne  Whateley 
of  Temple  Grafton.  The  theory  that  the  maiden 
name  of  Shakespeare's  wife  was  Whateley  is  quite 
untenable,  and  it  is  unsafe  to  assume  that  the  bishop's 
clerk,  when  making  a  note  of  the  grant  of  the  license 
in  his  register,  erred  so  extensively  as  to  write  '  Anne 

'^Twelfth  Night,  act  v.  sc.  i.  11.  1 60-4  : 

A  contract  of  eternal  bond  of  love, 

Confirm'd  by  mutual  joinder  of  your  hands, 

Attested  by  the  holy  close  of  lips, 

Strengthen'd  by  interchangement  of  your  rings  ; 

And  all  the  ceremony  of  this  compact 

Seal'd  in  my  \i.e.  the  priest's]  function  by  my  testimony. 

In  Measure  for  Measure  Claudio's  offence  is  intimacy  with  the  Lady 
Julia  after  the  contract  of  betrothal  and  before  the  formality  of  marriage 
(cf.  act  i.  sc.ii.  1.  155,  act  iv.  sc.  i.  1.  73). 


24  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Whatelcy  of  Temple  Grafton  '  for  '  Anne  Hathaway 
of  Shottery.'  The  husband  of  Anne  Whateley  cannot 
reasonably  be  identified  with  the  poet.  He  was  doubt- 
less another  of  the  numerous  William  Shakespeares 
who  abounded  in  the  diocese  of  Worcester.  Had  a 
license  for  the  poet's  marriage  been  secured  on  Novem- 
ber 27,1  it  is  unlikely  that  the  Shottery  husbandmen 
would  have  entered  next  day  into  a  bond  '  against 
impediments,'  the  execution  of  which  might  well 
have  been  demanded  as  a  preliminary  to  the  grant 
of  a  license  but  was  wholly  supererogatory  after  the 
grant  was  made. 

^  No  marriage  registers  of  the  period  are  extant  at  Temple  Grafton 
to  inform  us  whether  Anne  Whateley  actually  married  her  William 
Shakespeare  or  who  precisely  the  parties  were.  A  Whateley  family 
resided  in  Stratford,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  Anne  of  Temple 
Grafton  was  connected  with  it.  The  chief  argument  against  the  con- 
clusion that  the  marriage  license  and  the  marriage  bond  concerned 
different  couples  lies  in  the  apparent  improbability  that  two  persons, 
both  named  William  Shakespeare,  should  on  two  successive  days  not 
only  be  arranging  with  the  Bishop  of  Worcester's  official  to  marry,  but 
should  be  involving  themselves,  whether  on  their  own  initiative  or  on 
that  of  their  friends,  in  more  elaborate  and  expensive  forms  of  proced- 
ure than  were  habitual  to  the  humbler  ranks  of  contemporary  society. 
But  the  Worcester  diocese  covered  a  very  wide  area,  and  was  honey- 
combed with  Shakespeare  families  of  all  degrees  of  gentility.  The 
William  Shakespeare  whom  Anne  Whateley  was  licensed  to  marry  may 
have  been  of  a  superior  station,  to  which  marriage  by  license  was 
deemed  appropriate.  On  the  unwarranted  assumption  of  the  identity 
of  the  William  Shakespeare  of  the  marriage  bond  with  the  William 
Shakespeare  of  the  marriage  license,  a  romantic  theory  has  been 
based  to  the  effect  that  '  Anne  Whateley  of  Temple  Grafton,'  believing 
herself  to  have  a  just  claim  to  the  poet's  hand,  secured  the  license  on 
hearing  of  the  proposed  action  of  Anne  Hathaway's  friends,  and  hoped, 
by  moving  in  the  matter  a  day  before  the  Shottery  husbandmen,  to 
insure  Shakespeare's  fidelity  to  his  alleged  pledges. 


THE   FAREWELL  TO   STRATFORD  25 


III 

THE  FAREWELL    TO   STRATFORD 

Anne  Hathaway's  greater  burden  of  years  and  the 
likelihood  that  the  poet  was  forced  into  marrying  her 
by  her  friends  were  not  circumstances  of  happy  augury. 
Although  it  is  dangerous  to  read  into  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  utterances  allusions  to  his  personal  experi- 
ence, the  emphasis  with  which  he  insists  that  a 
woman  should  take  in  marriage  an  '  elder  than  her- 
self,' ^  and  that  prenuptial  intimacy  is  productive  of 
'barren  hate,  sour-ey'd  disdain,  and  discord,'  suggest 
a  personal  interpretation.^  To  both  these  unpromis- 
ing features  was  added,  in  the  poet's  case,  the  absence 
of  a  means  of  livelihood,  and  his  course  of  life  in  the 

1  Twelfth  Night,  act  ii.  sc.  iv.  1.  29 : 

Let  still  the  woman  take 
An  elder  than  herself;  so  wears  she  to  him, 
So  sways  she  level  in  her  husband's  heart.  .  , 

*  Tempest,  act  iv.  sc.  i.  11.  15-22 : 

If  thou  dost  break  her  virgin  knot  before 
All  sanctimonious  ceremonies  may 
With  full  and  holy  rite  be  minister'd, 
No  sweet  aspersion  shall  the  heavens  let  fall 
To  make  this  contract  grow;  but  barren  hate, 
Sour-ey'd  disdain,  and  discord,  shall  bestrew 
The  union  of  your  bed  with  weeds  so  loathly 
That  you  shall  hate  it  both. 


26  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

years  that  immediately  followed  implies  that  he  bore 
his  domestic  ties  with  impatience.  Early  in  1585 
twins  were  born  to  him,  a  son  (Hamnet)  and  a 
daughter  (Judith) ;  both  were  baptised  on  February  2. 
All  the  evidence  points  to  the  conclusion,  which 
the  fact  that  he  had  no  more  children  confirms, 
that  in  the  later  months  of  the  year  (1585)  he  left 
Stratford,  and  that,  although  he  was  never  wholly 
estranged  from  his  family,  he  saw  little  of  wife  or 
children  for  eleven  years.  Between  the  winter  of 
1585  and  the  autumn  of  1596  —  an  interval  which 
synchronises  with  his  first  literary  triumphs  —  there  is 
only  one  shadowy  mention  of  his  name  in  Stratford 
records.  In  April  1587  there  died  Edmund  Lambert, 
who  held  Asbies  under  the  mortgage  of  1578,  and  a 
few  months  later  Shakespeare's  name,  as  owner  of  a 
contingent  interest,  was  joined  to  that  of  his  father 
and  mother  in  a  formal  assent  given  to  an  abortive 
proposal  to  confer  on  Edmund's  son  and  heir,  John 
Lambert,  an  absolute  title  to  the  estate  on  condition 
of  his  cancelling  the  mortgage  and  paying  20/.  But 
the  deed  does  not  indicate  that  Shakespeare  per- 
sonally assisted  at  the  transaction.^ 

Shakespeare's  early  literary  work  proves  that 
while  in  the  country  he  eagerly  studied  birds,  flowers, 
and  trees,  and  gained  a  detailed  knowledge  of  horses 
and  dogs.  All  his  kinsfolk  were  farmers,  and  with 
them  he  doubtless  as  a  youth  practised  many  field 
sports.  Sympathetic  references  to  hawking,  hunting, 
coursing,  and  angling  abound  in  his  early  plays  and 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  11-13. 


THE   FAREWELL  TO   STRATFORD  2/ 

poems.^  And  his  sporting  experiences  passed  at  times 
beyond  orthodox  Hmits.  A  poaching  adventure,  ac- 
cording to  a  credible  tradition,  was  the  immediate 
cause  of  his  long  severance  from  his  native  place.  '  He 
had,'  wrote  Rowe  in  1709,  'by  a  misfortune  common 
enough  to  young  fellows,  fallen  into  ill  company,  and, 
among  them,  some,  that  made  a  frequent  practice  of 
deer-stealing,  engaged  him  with  them  more  than 
Poachin<^  oncc  in  robbing  a  park  that  belonged  to  Sir 
at  Charie-  Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote  near  Stratford. 
For  this  he  was  prosecuted  by  that  gentle- 
man, as  he  thought,  somewhat  too  severely ;  and,  in 
order  to  revenge  that  ill-usage,  he  made  a  ballad  upon 
him,  and  though  this,  probably  the  first  essay  of  his 
poetry,  be  lost,  yet  it  is  said  to  have  been  so  very 
bitter  that  it  redoubled  the  prosecution  against  him 
to  that  degree  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  his 
business  and  family  in  Warwickshire  and  shelter 
himself  in  London.'  The  independent  testimony  of 
Archdeacon  Davies,  who  was  vicar  of  Saperton, 
Gloucestershire,  late  in  the  seventeenth  century,  is  to 
the  effect  that  Shakespeare  'was  much  given  to  all 
unluckiness  in  stealing  venison  and  rabbits,  par- 
ticularly from  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  who  had  him  oft 
whipt,  and  sometimes  imprisoned,  and  at  last  made 
him  fly  his  native  county  to  his  great  advancement.' 
The   law    of    Shakespeare's    day   (5    Eliz.    cap.    21) 

^  Cf.  Ellacombe,  Shakespeare  as  an  Angler,  1883;  J.  E.  Harting, 
Ornithology  of  Shakespeare,  1872.  The  best  account  of  Shakespeare's 
knc5wledge  of  sport  is  given  by  the  Right  Hon.  D.  H.  Madden  in  his 
entertaining  and  at  the  same  time  scholarly  Diary  of  Master  William 
Silence :  a  Study  of  Shakespeare  and  Elizabethan  Sport,  1897. 


28  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

punished  deer-stealers  with  three  months'  imprison- 
ment and  the  payment  of  thrice  the  amount  of  the 
damage  done. 

The  tradition  has  been  challenged  on  the  ground 
that  the  Charlecote  deer-park  was  of  later  date  than 
Unwar-  the  sixteenth  century.  But  Sir  Thomas 
ranted         Lucv    was    an    extcnsivc     game-preserver, 

doubts  of  -^  &  1  » 

the  tradi-  and  owned  at  Charlecote  a  warren  in  which 
*'°"'  a   few    harts    or   does   doubtless  found    an 

occasional  home.  Samuel  Ireland  was  informed 
in  1794  that  Shakespeare  stole  tlje  deer,  not  from 
Charlecote,  but  from  Fulbroke  Park,  a  few  miles 
off,  and  Ireland  supplied  in  his  'Views  on  the 
Warwickshire  Avon,'  1795,  an  engraving  of  an  old 
farmhouse  in  the  hamlet  of  Fulbroke,  where  he  as- 
serted that  Shakespeare  was  temporarily  imprisoned 
after  his  arrest.  An  adjoining  hovel  was  locally 
known  for  some  years  as  Shakespeare's  '  deer-barn,' 
but  no  portion  of  Fulbroke  Park,  which  included  the 
site  of  these  buildings  (now  removed),  was  Lucy's 
property  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  the  amended 
legend,  which  was  solemnly  confided  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott  in  1828  by  the  owner  of  Charlecote,  seems  pure 
invention.^ 

The  ballad  which  Shakespeare  is  reported  to  have 
fastened  on  the  park  gates  of  Charlecote  does  not,  as 
Rowe  acknowledged,  survive.  No  authenticity  can 
be  allowed  the  worthless  lines  beginning  '  A  parlia- 
ment member,  a  justice  of  peace,'  which  were  repre- 

1  Cf.  C.  Holte  Bracehridge,  Shakespeare  no  Poacher,  1862;    Lock- 
hart,  Life  of  Scott,  vii.  123. 


THE   FAREWELL   TO   STR.\TFORD  29 

sented  to  be  Shakespeare's  on  the  authority  of  an  old 
man  who  lived  near  Stratford  and  died  in  1703.  But 
such  an  incident  as  the  tradition  reveals  has  left  a 
distinct  impress  on  Shakespearean  drama.  Justice 
Justice  Shallow  is  beyond  doubt  a  reminiscence  of 
Shallow.  ^Yie  owner  of  Charlecote.  According  to 
Archdeacon  Davies  of  Sapcrton,  Shakespeare's  're- 
venge was  so  great  that '  he  caricatured  Lucy  as 
*  Justice  Clodpate,'  who  was  (Davies  adds)  represented 
on  the  stage  as  '  a  great  man,'  and  as  bearing,  in 
allusion  to  Lucy's  name,  *  three  louses  rampant  for 
his  arms.'  Justice  Shallow,  Davies's  'Justice  Clod- 
pate,' came  to  birth  in  the  '  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV ' 
(1598),  and  he  is  represented  in  the  opening  scene  of 
the  '  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor '  as  having  come  from 
Gloucestershire  to  Windsor  to  make  a  Star-Chamber 
matter  of  a  poaching  raid  on  his  estate.  The  '  three 
luces  hauriant  argent'  were  the  arms  borne  by  the 
Charlecote  Lucys,  and  the  dramatist's  prolonged 
reference  in  this  scene  to  the  '  dozen  white  luces ' 
on  Justice  Shallow's  '  old  coat '  fully  establishes 
Shallow's  identity  with  Lucy. 

The  poaching  episode  is  best  assigned  to  1585, 
but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  Shakespeare,  on 
The  flitrht  fleeing  from  Lucy's  persecution,  at  once 
from  strat-  sought  an  asylum  in  London.  William  Bees- 
ton,  a  seventeenth-century  actor,  remem- 
bered hearing  that  he  had  been  for  a  time  a  country 
schoolmaster  '  in  his  younger  years,'  and  it  seems 
possible  that  on  first  leaving  Stratford  he  found  some 
such    employment  in  a  neighbouring  village.      The 


30  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

suggestion  that  he  joined,  at  the  end  of  1585,  a  band  of 
youths  of  the  district  in  serving  in  the  Low  Countries 
under  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  whose  castle  of  Kenil- 
worth  was  within  easy  reach  of  Stratford,  is  based  on 
an  obvious  confusion  between  him  and  others  of  his 
name.^  The  knowledge  of  a  soldier's  life  which 
Shakespeare  exhibited  in  his  plays  is  no  greater  and 
no  less  than  that  which  he  displayed  of  almost  all 
other  spheres  of  human  activity,  and  to  assume  that 
he  wrote  of  all  or  of  any  from  practical  experience, 
unless  the  evidence  be  conclusive,  is  to  underrate  his 
intuitive  power  of  realising  life  under  almost  every 
aspect  by  force  of  his  imagination. 

1  Cf.    W.   J.   Thorns.    Three    Notelets   on    Shakespeare,    1865,   pp. 
16  seq. 


ON  THE   LONDON   STAGE  3 1 


IV 

ON  THE  LONDON  STAGE 

To  London  Shakespeare  naturally  drifted,  doubt- 
less trudging  thither  on  foot  during  1586,  by  way 
The  jour-  ^'^  Oxford  and  High  Wycombe. ^  Tradition 
ney  to  points  to  that   as    Shakespeare's    favoured 

route,  rather  than  to  the  road  by  Banbury 
and  Aylesbury.  Aubrey  asserts  that  at  Grendon 
near  Oxford,  '  he  happened  to  take  the  humour  of 
the  constable  in  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream'"  —  by 
which  he  meant,  we  may  suppose,  *  Much  Ado  about 
Nothing '  —  but  there  were  watchmen  of  the  Dogberry 
type  all  over  England,  and  probably  at  Stratford 
itself.  The  Crown  Inn  (formerly  3  Cornmarket 
Street)  near  Carfax,  at  Oxford,  was  long  pointed  out 
as  one  of  his  resting-places. 

To  only  one  resident  in  London  is  Shakespeare 
likely   to    have   been    known    previously.^      Richard 

1  Cf.  Hales,  Notes  on  Shakespeare,  1884,  pp.  I-24. 

2  The  common  assumption  that  Richard  Burbage,  the  chief  actor  with 
whom  Shakespeare  was  associated,  was  a  native  of  Stratford  is  wholly 
erroneous.  Richard  was  born  in  Shoreditch,  and  his  father  came  from 
Hertfordshire.  John  Heming,  another  of  Shakespeare's  actor-friends 
who  has  also  been  claimed  as  a  native  of  Stratford,  was  beyond  reason- 
able doubt  born  at  Droitwich  in  Worcestershire.    Thomas  Greene,  a 


32  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Field,  a  native  of  Stratford,  and  son  of  a  friend  of 
Shakespeare's  father,  had  left  Stratford  in  1579 
Richard  ^^  serve  an  apprenticeship  with  Thomas 
Field,  his  Vautrollier,  the  London  printer.  Shake- 
townsman,    gpgj^j-g  ^^^  pigi^j^  ^hQ  ^as  made  free  of  the 

Stationers'  Company  in  1587,  were  soon  associated 
as  author  and  publisher;  but  the  theory  that  Field 
found  work  for  Shakespeare  in  Vautrollier's  print- 
ing-office is  fanciful. 1  No  more  can  be  said  for  the 
attempt  to  prove  that  he  obtained  employment  as 
a  lawyer's  clerk.  In  view  of  his  general  quickness 
of  apprehension,  Shakespeare's  accurate  use  of  legal 
terms,  which  deserves  all  the  attention  that  has  been 
paid  it,  may  be  attributable  in  part  to  his  observation 
of  the  many  legal  processes  in  which  his  father  was 
involved,  and  in  part  to  early  intercourse  with 
members  of  the  Inns  of  Court.^ 

Tradition  and  common-sense  alike  point  to  one 
of  the  only  two  theatres  (The  Theatre  or  The  Curtain) 
^,     . .    ,    that  existed  in  London  at  the  date  of    his 

Theatrical 

employ-  arrival  as  an  early  scene  of  his  regular 
"^'^"'"  occupation.     The  compiler  of  *  Lives  of  the 

Poets'  (1753)^  was  the  first  to  relate  the  story  that 

popular  comic  actor  at  the  Red  Bull  Theatre  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  is  conjectured  to  have  belonged  to  Stratford  on  no  grounds 
that  deserve  attention  ;  Shakespeare  was  in  no  way  associated  with 
him. 

1  Blades,  Shakspere  and  Typography,  1872. 

2  Cf.  Lord  Campbell,  Sha/;espeare's  Legal  Acqtiireiiients,  1859. 
Legal  terminology  abounded  in  all  plays  and  poems  of  the  period,  e.g. 
Barnabe  Barnes's  Sonnets,  1593,  and  Zepheria,  1594  (see  Appendix  ix). 

3  Commonly  assigned  to  Theophilus  Cibber,  but  written  by  Robert 
Shiels  and  other  hack-writers  under  Cibber's  editorship. 


ON  THE   LONDON   STAGE  33 

his  original  connection  with  the  playhouse  was  as 
holder  of  the-  horses  of  visitors  outside  the  doors. 
According  to  the  same  compiler,  the  story  was  related 
by  D'Avenant  to  Betterton ;  but  Rowe,  to  whom 
Betterton  communicated  it,  made  no  use  of  it.  The 
two  regular  theatres  of  the  time  were  both  reached  on 
horseback  by  men  of  fashion,  and  the  owner  of  The 
Theatre,  James  Burbage,  kept  a  livery  stable  at 
Smithfield.  There  is  no  inherent  improbability  in  the 
tale.  Dr.  Johnson's  amplified  version,  in  which  Shake- 
speare was  represented  as  organising  a  service  of  boys 
for  the  purpose  of  tending  visitors'  horses,  sounds 
apocryphal. 

There  is  every  indication  that  Shakespeare  was 
speedily  offered  employment  inside  the  playhouse. 
In  1587  the  two  chief  companies  of  actors,  claiming 
respectively  the  nominal  patronage  of  the  Queen  and 
Lord  Leicester,  returned  to  London  from  a  provincial 
tour,  during  which  they  visited  Stratford.  Two  subor- 
dinate companies,  one  of  which  claimed  the  patronage 
of  the  Earl  of  Essex  and  the  other  that  of  Lord 
Stafford,  also  performed  in  the  town  during  the  same 
year.  Shakespeare's  friends  may  have  called  the 
attention  of  the  strolling  players  to  the  homeless  lad, 
rumours  of  whose  search  for  employment  about  the 
London  theatres  had  doubtless  reached  Stratford. 
^   ,^  From  such  incidents  seems  to  have  sprung 

house  ser-    the  Opportunity  which  offered  Shakespeare 
fame   and  fortune.    (^According  to    Rowe'-s 
vague    statement,    '  he  was   received   into   the   com- 
pany then    in  being  at  first  in   a  very  mean  rank.' 

D 


34  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

William  Castle,  the  parish  clerk  of  Stratford  at  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  in  the  habit  of 
telling  visitors  that  he  entered  the  playhouse  as  a 
servitor.  Malone  recorded  in  1780  a  stage  tradition 
'that  his  first  office  in  the  theatre  was  that  of 
prompter's  attendant,'  or  call-boy.  His  intellectual 
capacity  and  the  amiability  with  which  he  turned 
to  account  his  versatile  powers  were  probably  soon 
recognised,  and  thenceforth  his  promotion  was 
assured. 

^Shakespeare's  earliest  reputation  was  made  as  an 
actor,^and,( although  his  work  as  a  dramatist  soon 
The  acting  eclipscd  his  histrionic  fame,  he  remained  a 
companies,  prominent  member  of  the  actor's  profession 
till  near  the  end  of  his  life.)  By  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment of  1 571  (14  Eliz.  cap.  2),  which  was  re-enacted 
in  1596  (39  Eliz.  cap.  4),  players  were  under  the 
necessity  of  procuring  a  license  to  pursue  their 
calling  from  a  peer  of  the  realm  or  '  personage  of 
higher  degree  ' ;  otherwise  they  were  adjudged  to  be 
of  the  status  of  rogues  and  vagabonds.  The  Queen 
herself  and  many  Elizabethan  peers  were  liberal  in 
the  exercise  of  their  licensing  powers,  and  few  actors 
failed  to  secure  a  statutory  license,  which  gave  them  a 
rank  of  respectability,  and  relieved  them  of  all  risk 
of  identification  with  vagrants  or  '  sturdy  beggars.' 
From  an  early  period  in  Elizabeth's  reign  licensed 
actors  were  organised  into  permanent  companies.  In 
1587  and  following  years,  besides  three  companies 
of  duly  licensed  boy-actors  that  were  formed  from 
the  choristers  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  and  the  Chapel 


ON  THE   LONDON   STAGE  35 

Royal  and  from  Westminster  scholars,  there  were 
in  London  at  least  six  companies  of  fully  licensed 
adult  actors ;  five  of  these  were  called  after  the  noble- 
men to  whom  their  members  respectively  owed  their 
licenses  (viz.  the  Earls  of  Leicester,  Oxford,  Sussex, 
and  Worcester,  and  the  Lord  Admiral,  Charles,  lord 
Howard  of  Effingham),  and  one  of  them  whose  actors 
derived  their  license  from  the  Queen  was  called  the 
Queen's  Company. 

The  patron's  functions  in  relation  to  the  companies 
seem  to  have  been  mainly  confined  to  the  grant 
or  renewal  of  the  actors'  licenses.  Constant  altera- 
tions of  name,  owing  to  the  death  or  change  from 
other  causes  of  the  patrons,  render  it  difficult  to 
trace  with  certainty  each  company's  history.  But 
there  seems  no  doubt  that  the  most  influential  of 
the  companies  named — that  under  the  nominal 
patronage  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester  —  passed  on  his 
death  in  September  1588  to  the  patronage  of 
Ferdinando  Stanley,  lord  Strange,  who  became  Earl 
of  Derby  on  September  25,  1592.  When  the  Earl  of 
Derby  died  on  April  16,  1594,  his  place  as  patron  and 
licenser  was  successively  filled  by  Henry  Carey,  first 
The  Lord  lord  Hunsdon,  Lord  Chamberlain  {d.  July  23, 
Iain's"  ^^'  ^596)'  3-rid  by  his  son  and  heir,  George 
company.  Carey,  second  lord  Hunsdon,  who  himself 
became  Lord  Chamberlain  in  March  1 597.  After 
King  James's  succession  in  May  1603  the  company 
was  promoted  to  be  the  King's  players,  and,  thus  ad- 
vanced in  dignity,  it  fully  maintained  the  supremacy 


36  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

which,  under  its  successive  titles,  it  had  already  long 
enjoyed. 

V  It  is  fair  to  infer  that  this  was  the  company 
that  Shakespeare  originally  joined  and  adhered  to 
through  life.  Documentary  evidence  proves  that  he 
was  a  member  of  it  in  December  1594;  in  May 
A  member  1603  he  was  oue  of  its  leaders)  Four 
Chambe°-  ^^  ^^^  chicf  mcmbcrs  —  Richard  Burbage, 
Iain's.  the  greatest  tragic  actor  of  the  day,  John 

Heming,  Henry  Condell,  and  Augustine  Phillips 
—  were  among  Shakespeare's  lifelong  friends.  Under 
this  company's  auspices,  moreover,  Shakespeare's 
plays  first  saw  the  light.  Only  two  of  the  plays 
claimed  for  him  —  'Titus  Andronicus'  and  '3  Henry 
VI  '  — ■  seem  to  have  been  performed  by  other  com- 
panies (the  Earl  of  Sussex's  men  in  the  one  case,  and 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  in  the  other). 

When  Shakespeare  became  a  member  of  the  com- 
pany it  was  doubtless  performing  at  The  Theatre,  the 
playhouse  in  Shoreditch  which  James  Burbage,  the 
father  of  the  great  actor,  Richard  Burbage,  had  con- 
structed in  1 576 ;  it  abutted  on  the  Finsbury  Fields,  and 
stood  outside  the  City's  boundaries.  The  only  other 
London  playhouse  then  in  existence — the  Curtain 
in  Moorfields  —  was  near  at  hand  ;  its  name  survives 
in  Curtain  Road,  Shoreditch.  But  at  an  early  date 
The  Lon-  ^^  ^^^  acting  career  Shakespeare's  company 
don  sought   and    found    new   quarters.       While 

known  as  Lord  Strange's  men,  they  opened 
on  February  19,  1592,  a  third  London  theatre,  called 
the  Rose,  which    Philip    Henslowe,   the  speculative 


ON   THE   LONDON   STAGE  37 

theatrical  manager,  had  erected  on  the  Bankside, 
Southwark.  At  the  date  of  the  inauguration  of  the 
Rose  Theatre  Shakespeare's  company  was  temporarily 
allied  with  another  company,  the  Admiral's  men,  who 
numbered  the  great  actor  Edward  AUeyn  among  them. 
Alleyn  for  a  few  months  undertook  the  direction  of 
the  amalgamated  companies,  but  they  quickly  parted, 
and  no  further  opportunity  was  offered  Shakespeare  of 
enjoying  professional  relations  with  Alleyn.  The  Rose_ 
Theatre  was  doubtless  the  earliest  scene  of  Shake- 
speare's pronounced  successes  alike  as  actor  and 
dramatist.  Subsequently  for  a  short  time  in  1 594  he 
frequented  the  stage  of  another  new  theatre  at  New- 
ington  Butts,  and  between  1595  and  1599  the  older 
stages  of  the  Curtain  and  of  The  Theatre  in  Shore- 
ditch.  The  Curtain  remained  open  till  the  Civil 
Wars,  although  its  vogue  after  1600  was  eclipsed 
by  that  of  younger  rivals.  (^In  1599  Richard  Burbage 
and  his  brother  Cuthbert  demolished  the  old  build- 
ing of  The  Theatre  and  built,  mainly  out  of  the 
materials  of  the  dismantled  fabric,  the  famous  theatre 
called  the  Globe  on  the  Bankside.^  It  was  octagonal 
in  shape,  and  built  of  wood,  and  doubtless  Shake- 
speare described  it  (rather  than  the  Curtain)  as  '  this 
wooden  O '  in  the  opening  chorus  of  '  Henry  V ' 
(1.  13).  After  1599  the  Globe  was  mainly  occupied 
by  Shakespeare's  company,  and  in  its  profits  he 
acquired  an  important  shar^  From  the  date  of  its 
inauguration  until  the  poet's  retirement,  the  Globe  — 
which  quickly  won  the  first  place  among  London 
theatres  —  seems  to  have  been  the  sole  playhouse  with 


38  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

which  Shakespeare  was  professionally  associated.  The 
equally  familiar  Blackfriars  Theatre,  which  was  created 
out  of  a  dwelling-house  by  James  Burbage,  the  actor's 
father,  at  the  end  of  1596,  was  for  many  years  after- 
wards leased  out  to  the  company  of  boy-actors  known 
as  '  the  Queen's  Children  of  the  Chapel ' ;  it  was  not 
occupied  by  Shakespeare's  company  until  December 
1609  or  January  16 10,  when  his  acting  days  were 
nearing  their  end.^ 

In  London  Shakespeare  resided  near  the  theatres. 
According  to  a  memorandum  by  Alleyn  (which 
Place  of  Malone  quoted),  he  lodged  in  1596  near 
residence  '  the  Bear  Garden  in  Southwark.'  In  1598 
one  William  Shakespeare,  who  was  assessed 
by  the  collectors  of  a  subsidy  in  the  sum  of  13^-.  /^d. 
upon  goods  valued  at  5/.,  was  a  resident  in  St.  Helen's 
parish,  Bishopsgate,  but  it  is  not  certain  that  this  tax- 
payer was  the  dramatist.^ 

The  chief  differences  between  the  methods  of 
theatrical  representation  in  Shakespeare's  day  and 
our  own  lay  in  the  facts  that  neither  scenery  nor 
scenic  costume  nor  women-actors  were  known  to 
the  Elizabethan  stage.  All  female  roles  were,  until 
the  Restoration  in  1660,  assumed  in  the  public 
theatres  by  men  or  boys.^  Consequently  the  skill 
needed  to  rouse  in  the  audience  the  requisite  illusions 

^  The  site  of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  is  now  occupied  by  the  offices 
of  the  Times  newspaper  in  Victoria  Street,  London,  E.G. 

2  Cf.  Exchequer  Lay  Subsidies  City  of  London^  146/369,  Public 
Record  Office  ;  Notes  and  Queries,  8th  ser.  viii.  418. 

3  Shakespeare  alludes  to  the  appearance  of  men  or  boys  in  women's 
parts  when  he  makes  Rosalind  say  laughingly  to  the  men  of  the  audience 
in  the  epilogue  to  As  You  Like  Lt,  'If  I  were  a  "woman,  I  would  kiss 


ON   THE   LONDON    STAGE  39 

was  far  greater  then  than  at  later  periods.  But  the 
professional  customs  of  Elizabethan  actors  approxi- 
mated in  other  respects  more  closely  to  those  of  their 
modern  successors  than  is  usually  recognised.  The 
practice  of  touring  in  the  provinces  was  followed  with 
even  greater  regularity  then  than  now.    Few  companies 

as  many,'  &c.      Similarly,  Cleopatra  on  her   downfall  in  Antony  and 

Cleopatra,  v.  ii.  220  seq.,  laments : 

the  quick  comedians 
Extemporally  will  stage  us  .   .  .  and  I  shall  see 
Some  squeaking  Cleopatra  boy  my  greatness. 

Men  taking  women's  parts  seem  to  have  worn  masks.  Flute  is  bidden 
by  Quince  play  Thisbe  '  in  a  mask '  in  Midsummer  Alight' s  Dream 
(i.  ii.  53).  In  French  and  Italian  theatres  of  the  time  women  seem  to 
have  acted  publicly,  but  until  the  Restoration  public  opinion  in  England 
deemed  the  appearance  of  a  woman  on  a  public  stage  to  be  an  act  of 
shamelessness  on  which  the  most  disreputable  of  her  sex  would  hardly 
venture.  With  a  curious  inconsistency  ladies  of  rank  were  encouraged  at 
Queen  Elizabeth's  Court,  and  still  more  frequently  at  the  Courts  of  James 
I  and  Charles  I,  to  take  part  in  private  and  amateur  representations  of 
masques  and  short  dramatic  pageants.  During  the  reign  of  James  I 
scenic  decoration,  usually  designed  by  Inigo  Jones,  accompanied  the 
production  of  masques  in  the  royal  palaces,  but  until  the  Restoration 
the  public  stages  were  bare  of  any  scenic  contrivance  except  a  front 
curtain  opening  in  the  middle  and  a  balcony  or  upper  platform  resting 
on  pillars  at  the  back  of  the  stage,  from  which  portions  of  the  dialogue 
were  sometimes  spoken,  although  occasionally  the  balcony  seems  to 
have  been  occupied  by  spectators  (cf.  a  sketch  made  by  a  Dutch  visitor 
to  London  in  1596  of  the  stage  of  the  Swan  Theatre  in  Zur  Kenntniss 
der  altenglischen  Buhne  von  Karl  Theodor  Gaedertz.  Mil  der  ersten 
authentischen  innern  Ansicht  der  Schiuans  Theatre  in  London,  Bremen 
1888).  Sir  Philip  Sidney  humorously  described  the  spectator's  diffi- 
culties in  an^Elizabethan  playhouse,  where,  owing  to  the  absence  of 
stage  scenery,  he  had  to  imagine  the  bare  boards  to  present  in  rapid 
succession  a  garden,  a  rocky  coast,  a  cave,  and  a  battlefield  {^Apologie 
for  Poetrie,  p.  52).  Three  flourishes  on  a  trumpet  announced  the 
beginning  of  the  performance,  but  a  band  of  fiddlers  played  music 
between  the  acts.  The  scenes  of  each  act  were  played  without  inter- 
ruption. 


40  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

remained  in  London  during  the  summer  or  early 
autumn,  and  every  country  town  with  two  thousand 
or  more  inhabitants  could  reckon  on  at  least  one  visit 
from  travelling  actors  between  May  and  October.  ^A 
rapid  examination  of  the  extant  archives  of  some 
seventy  municipalities  selected  at  random  shows  that 
Shakespeare's  company  between  1594  and  16 14  fre- 
quently performed  in  such  towns  as  Barnstaple,  Bathj 
Bristol,  Coventry,  Dover,  Faversham,  Folkestone, 
Hythe,  Leicester,  Maidstone,  Marlborough,  New 
Romney,  Oxford,  Rye  in  Sussex,  Saffron  Walden, 
Shake-  and  Shrewsbury.^  Shakespeare  may  be 
aSr?  credited  with  faithfully  fulfilling  all  his  pro- 
travels,  f  essional  functions,  and  some  of  the  references 
to  travel  in  his  sonnets  were  doubtless  reminiscences 
of  early  acting  tours.  It  has  been  repeatedly  urged, 
moreover,  that  Shakespeare's  company  visited  Scot- 
land, and  that  he  went  with  it.^     In  November  1599 

1  Cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps's  Visits  of  Shakespeare^ s  Company  of  Ac- 
tors to  the  Provincial  Cities  and  Towns  of  England  (privately  printed, 
1887).  From  the  information  there  given,  occasionally  supplemented 
from  other  sources,  the  following  imperfect  itinerary  is  deduced : 

1593.  Bristol  and  Shrewsbury.  1607.    Oxford. 

1594.  Marlborough.  1608.    Coventry  and  Marlborough. 
1597.    Faversham,  Bath,  Rye,  Bristol,         1609.   Hythe,     New      Romney,     and 

Dover,  and  Marlborough.  Shrewsbury. 

603.   Richmond       (Surrey),       Bath,  1610.    Dover,    Oxford,    and    Shrews- 
Coventry,  Shrewsbury,  Mort-  bury, 

lake,  Wilton  House.  1612.   New  Romney. 

1604.  Oxford.  1613.   Folkestone,  Oxford,  and  Shrews- 

1605.  Barnstaple  and  Oxford.  bury. 

1606.  Leicester,       Saffron      Walden,  1614.    Coventry. 

Marlborough,  Oxford,  Dover, 
and  Maidstone. 

2  Cf.  Knight's  Life  of  Shakespeare  (1843),  P-  4i;  Fleay,  Stage,  pp. 
135-6- 


ON  THE  LONDON   STAGE  4 1 

English  actors  arrived  in  Scotland  under  the  leader- 
in  Scot-  ship  of  Lawrence  Fletcher  and  one  Martin, 
land.  ^j-,^    were    welcomed    with    enthusiasm    by 

the  king.^  Fletcher  was  a  colleague  of  Shake- 
speare in  1603,  but  is  not  known  to  have  been  one 
earlier.  Shakespeare's  company  never  included  an 
actor  named  Martin.  Fletcher  repeated  the  visit  in 
October  1601.^  There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  any 
of  his  companions  belonged  to  Shakespeare's  company. 
In  like  manner,  Shakespeare's  accurate  reference  in 
'  Macbeth  '  to  the  '  nimble  '  but  '  sweet '  climate  of 
Inverness,^  and  the  vivid  impression   he  conveys  of 

1  The  favour  bestowed  by  James  VI  on  these  EngHsh  actors  was 
so  marked  as  to  excite  the  resentment  of  the  leaders  of  the  Kirk.  The 
English  agent,  George  Nicolson,  in  a  (hitherto  unpublished)  despatch 
dated  from  Edinburgh  on  November  12,  1599,  wrote  :  'The  four  Ses- 
sions of  this  Town  (without  touch  by  name  of  our  English  players, 
Fletcher  and  Mertyn  [i.e.  Martyn],  with  their  company),  and  not 
knowing  the  King's  ordinances  for  them  to  play  and  be  heard,  enacted 
[that]  their  flocks  [were]  to  forbear  and  not  to  come  to  or  haunt  profane 
games,  sports,  or  plays.'  Thereupon  the  King  summoned  the  Sessions 
before  him  in  Council  and  threatened  them  with  the  full  rigour  of  the 
law.  Obdurate  at  first,  the  ministers  subsequently  agreed  to  moderate 
their  hostile  references  to  the  actors.  Finally,  Nicolson  adds,  '  the 
King  this  day  by  proclamation  with  sound  of  trumpet  hath  commanded 
the  players  liberty  to  play,  and  forbidden  their  hinder  or  impeach- 
ment therein.'  j1/S.  Slale  Papers,  Dom.  Scotland,  P.  R.  O.  vol.  Ixv. 
No.  64. 

2  Fleay,  Stage,  pp.  126-44. 

*  Cf.  Duncan's  speech  (on  arriving  at  Macbeth's  castle  of  Inverness)  : 

This  castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat  ;   the  air 
Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 
Unto  our  gentle  senses. 

Ranqno.  This  guest  of  summer, 

The  temple-haunting  martlet,  does  approve. 
By  his  lov'd  mansionry,  that  the  heaven's  breath 
Smells  wooingly  here.  {Macbeth  i.  vi.  i-6.) 


42  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  aspects  of  wild  Highland  heaths,  have  been  judged 
to  be  the  certain  fruits  of  a  personal  experience ;  but 
the  passages  in  question,  into  which  a  more  definite 
significance  has  possibly  been  read  than  Shakespeare 
intended,  can  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  Shake- 
speare's inevitable  intercourse  with  Scotsmen  in 
London  and  the  theatres  after  James  I's  accession. 

A  few  English  actors  in  Shakespeare's  day  occa- 
sionally combined  to  make  professional  tours  through 
foreign  lands,  where  Court  society  invariably  gave 
them  an  hospitable  reception.  In  Denmark,  Germany, 
Austria,  Holland,  and  in  France,  many  dramatic 
performances  were  given  before  royal  audiences  by 
English  actors  between  1 580  and  1630.^  That  Shake- 
speare joined  any  of  these  expeditions  is  highly  im- 
probable. Actors  of  small  account  at  home  mainly 
took  part  in  them,  and  Shakespeare's  name  appears  in 
no  extant  list  of  those  who  paid  professional  visits 
abroad.  It  is,  in  fact,  unlikely  that  Shakespeare  ever 
set  foot  on  the  continent  of  Europe  in  either  a  private 
or  professional  capacity.  He  repeatedly  ridicules 
the  craze  for  foreign  travel.^  To  Italy,  it 
is  true,  and  especially  to  cities  of  Northern 
Italy,  like  Venice,  Padua,  Verona,  Mantua,  and 
Milan,  he  makes  frequent  and  familiar  reference,  and 

1  Cf.  Cohn,  Shakespeare  in  Germany,  1S65;  Meissner,  Die  englis- 
chen  Comodianten  zur  Zeit  Shakespeare  in  Oestereieh,  Vienna,  1884; 
Jon  Stefansson  on  '  Shakespeare  at  Elsinore '  in  Contemporary  Review, 
January  1896;  Notes  and  Queries,  5th  ser.  ix.  43,  and  xi.  520;  and  M. 
Jusserand's  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  April  1898,  on  English 
actors  in  France. 

2  Cf.  As  You  Like  It,  iv.  i.  22-40. 


ON  THE   LONDON   STAGE  43 

he  supplied  many  a  realistic  portrayal  of  Italian  life 
and  sentiment.  But  the  fact  that  he  represents 
Valentine  in  the  'Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona'  (i.  i. 
71)  as  travelling  from  Verona  to  Milan  by  sea, 
and  Prospero  in  '  The  Tempest '  as  embarking  on  a 
ship  at  the  gates  of  Milan  (i.  ii.  129-44),  renders  it 
almost  impossible  that  he  could  have  gathered  his 
knowledge  of  Northern  Italy  from  personal  ob- 
servation.^ He  doubtless  owed  all  to  the  verbal 
reports  of  travelled  friends  or  to  books,  the  contents 
of  which  he  had  a  rare  power  of  assimilating  and 
vitalising. 

vThe  publisher  Chettle  wrote  in  1 592  that  Shake- 
speare was  '  exelent  in  the  qualitie  ^  he  professes,'  and 
the  old  actor  William  Beeston  asserted  in  the  next 
century  that  Shakespeare  '  did  act  exceedingly  well.'  ^ 
g,  ,  But    the    roles    in   which   he    distinguished 

speare's  himsclf  are  imperfectly  recorded.  Few  sur- 
^°^"'  viving  documents   refer   directly  to  perfor- 

mances by  him.  At  Christmas  1594  he  joined  the 
popular  actors  William  Kemp,  the  chief  comedian  of 
the  day,  and  Richard  Burbage,  the  greatest  tragic 
actor,  in  '  two  several  comedies  or  interludes '  which 
were  acted  on  St.  Stephen's  Day  and  on  Innocents' 
Day  (December  27  and  28)  at  Greenwich  Palace 
before  the  Queen.  The  players  received  'xiii//.  vji". 
\\\\d.   and  by   waye  of   her  Majesties    rewarde  vi/z. 

1  Cf.  Elze,  Essays,  1874,  pp.  254  seq. 

2  '  Quality '  in  Elizabethan  English  was  the  technical  term  for  the 
'actor's  profession.' 

8  Aubrey's  Lives,  ed.  Andrew  Clark,  ii.  226. 


44  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

xiiijT.  iiij^T^.,  in  all  xx//.'^  Neither  plays  nor  parts  are 
named.  Shakespeare's  name  stands  first  on  the  list 
of  those  who  took  part  in  the  original  performances 
of  Ben  Jonson's  'Every  Man  in  his  Humour'  (1598). 
In  the  original  edition  of  Jonson's  '  Sejanus'  (1603) 
the  actors'  names  are  arranged  in  two  columns,  and 
Shakespeare's  name  heads  the  second  column,  stand- 
ing parallel  with  Burbage's,  which  heads  the  first. 
But  here  again  the  character  allotted  to  each  actor  is 
not  stated.  \Rowe  identified  only  one  of  Shakespeare's 
parts,  'the  Ghost  in  his  own  "  Hamlet,"  '  and  Rowe 
asserted  his  assumption  of  that  character  to  be  'the 
top  of  his  performance.'  John  Davies  of  Hereford 
noted  that  he  'played  some  kingly  parts  in  sport.' ^ 
One  of  Shakespeare's  younger  brothers,  presumably 
Gilbert,  often  came,  wrote  Oldys,  to  London  in  his 
younger  days  to  see  his  brother  act  in  his  own  plays ; 
and  in  his  old  age,  when  his  memory  was  failing, 
he  recalled  his  brother's  performance  of  Adam  in 
'As  You  Like  It.';  In  the  1623  folio  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's '  Works '  his  name  heads  the  prefatory  list 
'of  the  principall  actors  in  all  these  playes.' 

( That  Shakespeare  chafed  under  some  of  the 
conditions  of  the  actor's  calling  is  commonly  inferred 
Alleged  from  the  '  Sonnets.'  There  he  reproaches 
scorn  of  an  j^^j^gg^f  ^^^^-^  bccomiug  '  a  motlcy  to  the  view ' 

actors  call-  o  j 

ing.  (ex.  2),  and  chides  fortune  for  having  pro- 

vided for  his  livelihood  nothing  better  than  '  public 

^  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  121  ;  Mrs.  Slopes  m  Jahrbuch  der  deutschen 
Shakespeare- Gesellschaft,  1896,  xxxii.  182  seq. 
2  Scourge  of  Folly,  1 610,  epigr.  159. 


ON  THE   LONDON   STAGE  45 

means  that  public  manners  breed)  whence  his  name 
received  a  brand  (cxi.  4-5).  If  such  self-pity  is  to 
be  literally  interpreted,  it  only  reflected  an  evanescent 
mood.  His  interest  in  all  that  touched  the  efficiency  of 
his  profession  was  permanently  active.  He  was  a  keen 
critic  of  actors'  elocution,  and  in  'Hamlet'  shrewdly 
denounced  their  common  failings,  but  clearly  and 
hopefully  pointed  out  the  road  to  improvement.  His 
highest  ambitions  lay,  it  is  true,  elsewhere  than  in 
acting,  and  at  an  early  period  of  his  theatrical  career 
he  undertook,  with  triumphant  success,  the  labours  of 
a  playwright.  (But  he  pursued  the  profession  of  an 
actor  loyally  and  uninterruptedly  until  he  resigned 
all  connection  with  the  theatre  within  a  few  years  of 
his  deathA 


46  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 


V 

EARLY  DRAMATIC  EFFORTS 

The  whole  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  work  was  pro- 
bably begun  and  ended  within  two  decades  (1591- 
Dramatic  i6i  i),  between  his  twenty-seventh  and  forty- 
work,  seventh  year.  If  the  works  traditionally 
assigned  to  him  include  some  contributions  from 
other  pens,  he  was  perhaps  responsible,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  portions  of  a  few  plays  that  are  traditionally 
claimed  for  others.  When  the  account  is  balanced, 
Shakespeare  must  be  credited  with  the  production 
during  these  twenty  years,  of  a  yearly  average  of 
two  plays,  nearly  all  of  which  belong  to  the  supreme 
rank  of  literature.  Three  volumes  of  poems  must  be 
added  to  the  total.  Ben  Jonson  was  often  told  by  the 
players  that  '  whatsoever  he  penned  he  never  blotted 
out  {i.e.  erased)  a  line.'  The  editors  of  the  First  Folio 
attested  that  '  what  he  thought  he  uttered  with  that 
easinesse  that  we  have  scarce  received  from  him  a 
blot  in  his  papers.'  Signs  of  hasty  workmanship  are 
not  lacking,  but  they  are  few  when  it  is  considered 
how  rapidly  his  numerous  compositions  came  from 
his  pen,  and  they  are  in  the  aggregate  unimportant. 

By  borrowing  his  plots  he  to  some  extent  econo- 
mised his  energy,  but  he  transformed  most  of  them, 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  47 

and  it  was  not  probably  with  the  object  of  conserv- 
„.  ,  ing    his    strength    that    he    systematically 

rowed  levied  loans  on  popular  current  literature  like 
^^°^^'  Holinshed's  'Chronicles,'  North's  translation 

of  '  Plutarch,'  widely  read  romances,  and  successful 
plays.  In  this  regard  he  betrayed  something  of  the 
practical  temperament  which  is  traceable  in  the 
conduct  of  the  affairs  of  his  later  life.  It  was  doubt- 
less with  the  calculated  aim  of  ministering  to  the 
public  taste  that  he  unceasingly  adapted,  as  his 
genius  dictated,  themes  which  had  already,  in  the 
hands  of  inferior  writers  or  dramatists,  proved  capa- 
ble of  arresting  public  attention. 

The  professional  playwrights  sold  their  plays  out- 
right to  one  or  other  of  theactingcompanies,  and  they 
.p,        .      retained  no  legal  interest  in  them  after  the 

The  revi-  t^ 

sion  of-  manuscript  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
^^^^'  theatrical  manager.^     It  was  not  unusual  for 

the  manager  to  invite  extensive  revision  of  a  play  at 
the  hands  of  others  than  its  author  before  it  was  pro- 
duced on  the  stage,  and  again  whenever  it  was  revived. 
Shakespeare  gained  his  earliest  experience  as  a  dra- 
matist by  revising  or  rewriting  behind  the  scenes  plays 
that  had  become  the  property  of  his  manager.  It  is 
possible  that  some  of  his  labours  in  this  direction 

1  One  of  the  many  crimes  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  dramatist 
Robert  Greene  was  that  of  fraudulently  disposing  of  the  same  play  to 
two  companies.  'Ask  the  Queen's  players,'  his  accuser  bade  him  in 
Cuthbert  Cony-Catcher's  Defence  of  Cony- Catching,  1592,  'if  you 
sold  them  not  Orlattdo  Furioso  for  twenty  nobles  [^i.e.  about  7/.], 
and  when  they  were  in  the  country  sold  the  same  play  to  the  Lord 
Admiral's  men  for  as  many  more.' 


4cS  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

remain  unidentified.  In  a  few  cases  his  alterations 
were  slight,  but  as  a  rule  his  fund  of  originality  was 
too  abundant  to  restrict  him,  when  working  as  an 
adapter,  to  mere  recension,  and  the  results  of  most 
of  his  labours  in  that  capacity  are  entitled  to  rank 
among  original  compositions. 

The  determination  of  the  exact  order  in  which 
Shakespeare's  plays  were  written  depends  largely  on 
^,  conjecture.     External  evidence  is  accessible 

Chrono-  ." 

logy  of  the  in  Only  a  few  cases,  and,  although  always 
^^^^'  worthy  of  the  utmost  consideration,  is  not 

invariably  conclusive.  The  date  of  publication  rarely 
indicates  the  date  of  composition.  Only  sixteen  of 
the  thirty-seven  plays  commonly  assigned  to  Shake- 
speare were  published  in  his  lifetime,  and  it  is  question- 
able whether  any  were  published  under  his  super- 
vision.^ But  subject-matter  and  metre  both  afford 
rough  clues  to  the  period  in  his  career  to  which  each 

1  The  playhouse  authorities  deprecated  the  publishing  of  plays  in 
the  belief  that  their  dissemination  in  print  was  injurious  to  the 
receipts  of  the  theatre.  A  very  small  proportion  of  plays  acted  in 
Elizabeth's  and  James  I's  reign  consequently  reached  the  printing  press, 
and  most  of  them  are  now  lost.  But  in  the  absence  of  any  law  of  copy- 
right publishers  often  defied  the  wishes  of  the  owner  of  manuscripts. 
Many  copies  of  a  popular  play  were  made  for  the  actors,  and  if  one 
of  these  copies  chanced  to  fall  into  a  publisher's  hands,  it  was 
haljitually  issued  without  any  endeavour  to  obtain  either  author's  or 
manager's  sanction.  In  March  1599  the  theatrical  manager  Philip 
Henslowe  endeavoured  to  induce  a  publisher  who  had  secured  a  play- 
house copy  of  the  comedy  of  Patient  Grissell  by  Dekker,  Chettle,  and 
Haughton  to  abandon  the  publication  of  it  by  offering  him  a  bribe  of  2/. 
The  publication  was  suspended  till  1603  (cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  p.  167). 
As  late  as  1633  Thomas  Heywood  wrote  of  '  some  actors  who  think  it 
against  their  peculiar  profit  to  have  them  S^i.e.  plays]  come  into  print.' 
{^English  Traveller,  pref.) 


EARLY   DRAMATIC    EFFORTS  49 

play  may  be  referred.  In  his  early  plays  the  spirit 
of  comedy  or  tragedy  appears  in  its  simplicity  ;  as 
his  powers  gradually  matured  he  depicted  life  in 
its  most  complex  involutions,  and  portrayed  with 
masterly  insight  the  subtle  gradations  of  human 
sentiment  and  the  mysterious  workings  of  human 
passion.  Comedy  and  tragedy  are  gradually  blended  ; 
and  his  work  finally  developed  a  pathos  such  as 
could  only  come  of  ripe  experience.  Similarly  the 
metre  undergoes  emancipation  from  the  hampering 
restraints  of  fixed  rule  and  becomes  flexible  enough 
to  respond  to  every  phase  of  human  feeling.  In 
Metrical  the  blank  verse  of  the  early  plays  a  pause 
tests.  jg    strictly    observed  at   the    close   of  each 

line,  and  rhyming  couplets  are  frequent.  Gradually 
the  poet  overrides  such  artificial  restrictions ;  rhyme^. 
largely  disappears ;  recourse  is  more  frequently  made 
to  prose ;  the  pause  is  varied  indefinitely ;  extra  syl- 
lables are,  contrary  to  strict  metrical  law,  introduced 
at  the  end  of  lines,  and  at  times  in  the  middle;  the  last 
word  of  the  line  is  often  a  weak  and  unemphatic  con- 
junction or  preposition.  1  To  the  latest  plays  fantastic 
and  punning  conceits  which  abound  in  early  work  are 
rarely  accorded  admission.     But,  while  Shakespeare's 

^  W.  S.  Walker  in  his  Shakespeare's  Versification,  1854,  and  Charles 
Bathurst  in  his  Difference  in  Shakespeare' s  Versificatio7i  at  Different 
Periods  of  his  Life,  1857,  were  the  first  to  point  out  the  general 
facts.  Dr.  Ingram's  paper  on  '  The  Weak  Endings '  in  New  Shakspere 
Society^s  Transactions  (1874),  vol.  i.,  is  of  great  value.  Mr.  Fleay's 
metrical  tables,  which  first  appeared  in  the  same  society's  Transac- 
tions (1874),  and  have  been  reissued  by  Dr.  Furnivall  in  a  somewhat - 
revised  form  in  his  introduction  to  Gervinus's  Commentaries  and  in  his 
Leopold  Shakspere,  give  all  the  information  possible. 
E 


50  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

achievement  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his 
career  offers  clearer  evidence  than  that  of  any  other 
writer  of  genius  of  the  steady  and  orderly  growth 
of  his  poetic  faculty,  some  allowance  must  be  made 
for  ebb  and  flow  in  the  current  of  his  artistic  progress. 
Early  work  occasionally  anticipates  features  that  be- 
come habitual  to  late  work,  and  late  work  at  times 
embodies  traits  that  are  mainly  identified  with  early 
work.  No  exclusive  reliance  in  determining  the  pre- 
cise chronology  can  be  placed  on  the  merely  mechani- 
cal tests  afforded  by  tables  of  metrical  statistics.  The 
chronological  order  can  only  be  deduced  with  any 
confidence  from  a  consideration  of  all  the  internal 
characteristics  as  weU  as  the  known  external  history 
of  each  play.  The  premisses  are  often  vague  and 
conflicting,  and  no  chronology  hitherto  suggested  re- 
ceives at  all  points  universal  assent. 

There  is  no  external  evidence  to  prove  that  any 
piece  in  which  Shakespeare  had  a  hand  was  produced 
before  the  spring  of  1 592.  No  play  by  him  was  pub- 
lished before  1 597,  and  none  bore  his  name  on  the  title- 
page  till  1 598.  But  his  first  essays  have  been  with  con- 
fidence allotted  to  1591.  To  'Love's  Labour's  Lost' 
'Love's  may  reasonably  be  assigned  priority  in  point 
Labour's  of  time  of  all  Shakespeare's  dramatic  produc- 
°^''  tions.    Internal  evidence  alone  indicates  the 

date  of  composition,  and  proves  that  it  was  an  early 
effort ;  but  the  subject-matter  suggests  that  its  author 
had  already  enjoyed  extended  opportunities  of  survey- 
ing London  life  and  manners,  such  as  were  hardly  open 
to  him  in  the  very  first  years  of  his  settlement  in  the 


EARLY  DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  51 

metropolis.  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  embodies  keen 
observation  of  contemporary  life  in  many  ranks  of 
society,  both  in  town  and  country,  while  the  speeches 
of  the  hero  Biron  clothe  much  sound  philosophy  in 
masterly  rhetoric.  Its  slender  plot  stands  almost  alone 
among  Shakespeare's  plots  in  that  it  is  not  known  to 
have  been  borrowed,  and  stands  quite  alone  in  openly 
travestying  known  traits  and  incidents  of  current  so- 
cial and  political  life.  The  names  of  the  chief  char- 
acters are  drawn  from  the  leaders  in  the  civil  war 
in  France,  which  was  in  progress  between  1589  and 
1594,  and  was  anxiously  watched  by  the  English 
public.^    Contemporary  projects  of  academies  for  dis- 

1  The  hero  is  the  King  of  Navarre,  in  whose  dominions  the  scene 
is  laid.  The  two  chief  lords  in  attendance  on  him  in  the  play,  Biron 
and  Longaville,  bear  the  actual  names  of  the  two  most  strenuous  sup- 
porters of  the  real  King  of  Navarre  (Biron's  later  career  subsequently 
formed  the  subject  of  two  plays  by  Chapman,  The  Conspiracie  of  Duke 
Biroti  and  The  Tragedy  of  Biroi,  which  were  both  produced  in  1605). 
The  name  of  the  Lord  Dumain  in  Love's  Labour's  L^ost  is  a  common 
Anglicised  version  of  that  Due  de  Maine  or  Mayenne  whose  name  was  so 
frequently  mentioned  in  popular  accounts  of  French  affairs  in  connection 
with  Navarre's  movements  that  Shakespeare  was  led  to  number  him  also 
among  his  supporters.  Mothe  or  La  Mothe,  the  name  of  the  pretty, 
ingenious  page,  was  that  of  a  French  ambassador  who  was  long  pop- 
ular in  London;  and,  though  he  left  England  in  1583,  he  lived  in  the 
memory  of  playgoers  and  playwrights  long  after  Love''s  Labour'' s  Lost  was 
written.  In  Chapman's  An  Humourous  Day's  Mirth,  1599,  M.  Le  Mot, 
a  sprightly  courtier  in  attendance  on  the  King  of  France,  is  drawn 
from  the  same  original,  and  his  name,  as  in  Shakespeare's  play,  sug- 
gests much  punning  on  the  word  'mote.'  As  late  as  1602  Middleton, 
in  his  Blurt,  Master  Constable,  act  ii.  sc.  ii.  1.  215,  wrote : 

Ho  God!  Ho  God!  thus  did  I  revel  it 
When  Monsieur  Motte  lay  here  ambassador. 

Armado, 'the  fantastical  Spaniard' who  haunts  Navarre's  Court,  and 
is  dubbed  by  another  courtier  '  a  phantasm,  a  Monarcho,'  is  a  caricature 


52  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

ciplining  young  men  ;  fashions  of  speech  and  dress 
current  in  fashionable  circles ;  recent  attempts  on  the 
part  of  Elizabeth's  government  to  negotiate  with  the 
Tsar  of  Russia;  the  inefficiency  of  rural  constables 
and  the  pedantry  of  village  schoolmasters  and  curates 
are  all  satirised  with  good  humour.  The  play  was 
revised  in  1597,  probably  for  a  performance  at  Court. 
It  was  first  published  next  year,  and  on  the  title-page, 
which  described  the  piece  as  '  newly  corrected  and 
augmented,'  Shakespeare's  name  first  appeared  in 
print  as  that  of  author  of  a  play. 

Less  gaiety  characterised  another  comedy  of  the 
same  date,  'The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  which 
,^^^^  dramatises    a    romantic    story    of    love   and 

Gentlemen    friendship.     There  is  every  likelihood  that 

of  Verona."    .,  t       ^    i.-  i*  4. 

it  was  an  adaptation  —  amounting  to  a  re- 

of  a  half-crazed  Spaniard  known  as  '  fantastical  Monarcho  '  who  for 
many  years  hung  about  Elizabeth's  Court,  and  was  under  the  delusion 
that  he  owned  the  ships  arriving  in  the  port  of  London.  On  his  death 
Thomas  Churchyard  wrote  a  poem  called  Fantasticall  Monarcho' s  Epi- 
taph, and  mention  is  made  of  him  in  Reginald  Scott's  Discoverie  of 
Witchcraft,  1584,  p.  54.  The  name  Armado  was  doubtless  suggested 
by  the  expedition  of  1588.  Braggardino  in  Chapman's  Blind  Beggar 
of  Alexandria,  1598,  is  drawn  on  the  same  lines.  The  scene  (^Love's 
Labour'' s  Lost,  v.  ii.  158  seq.)  in  which  the  princess's  lovers  press  their 
suit  in  the  disguise  of  Russians  follows  a  description  of  the  reception  liy 
ladies  of  Elizabeth's  Court  in  1584  of  Russian  ambassadors  who  came 
to  London  to  seek  a  wife  among  the  ladies  of  the  English  nobility  for 
the  Tsar  (cf.  Horsey's  Travels,  ed.  E.  A.  Bond,  Hakluyt  Soc).  For 
further-  indications  of  topics  of  the  day  treated  in  the  play,  see  'A 
New  Study  of  "  Love's  Labour's  Lost," '  by  the  present  writer  in  Gent. 
Afag.,  Oct.  1880;  and  Transactions  of  the  Neiu  Shakspere  Society,  ^t. 
iii.  p.  80*.  The  attempt  to  detect  in  the  schoolmaster  Holofernes  a 
caricature  of  the  Italian  teacher  and  lexicographer,  John  Florio,  seems 
unjustified  (see  p.  85  «.). 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  53 

formation — of  a  lost  'History  of  Felix  and  Philo- 
mena,'  which  had  been  acted  at  Coiwt  in  1584.  The 
story  is  the  same  as  that  of  '  The  Shepardess  Felis- 
mena '  in  the  Spanish  pastoral  romance  of  '  Diana  '  by 
George  de  Montemayor,  which  long  enjoyed  popular- 
ity in  England.  No  complete  English  translation  of 
'  Diana '  was  published  before  that  of  Bartholomew 
Yonge  in  1598,  but  a  manuscript  version  by  Thomas 
Wilson,  which  was  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Southamp- 
ton in  1596,  was  possibly  circulated  far  earlier.  Some 
verses  from  '  Diana  '  were  translated  by  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney and  were  printed  with  his  poems  as  early  as  1591. 
Barnabe  Rich's  story  of  '  Apollonius  and  Silla '  (from 
Cinthio's  '  Hecatommithi '),  which  Shakespeare  em- 
ployed again  in  'Twelfth  Night,'  also  gave  him  some 
hints.  Trifling  and  irritating  conceits  abound  in  the 
'  Two  Gentlemen,'  but  passages  of  high  poetic  spirit 
are  not  wanting,  and  the  speeches  of  the  clowns, 
Launce  and  Speed,  —  the  precursors  of  a  long  line  of 
whimsical  serving-men,  —  overflow  with  farcical  drol- 
lery. The  '  Two  Gentlemen '  was  not  published  in 
Shakespeare's  lifetime ;  it  first  appeared  in  the  folio 
of  1623,  after  having,  in  all  probability,  undergone 
some  revision.^ 

Shakespeare  next  tried  his  hand,  in  the  '  Comedy 
of  Errors  '  (commonly  known  at  the  time  as  '  Errors  '), 
'Comedy  at  boistcrous  farce.  It  also  was  first  pub- 
of  Errors.'  Hghcd  in  1623.  Again,  as  in  '  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,'  allusion  was  made  to  the  civil  war  in  France. 
France  was  described  as  making  war  against  her  heir 

1  Cf.  Fleay,  Life,  pp.  1S8  seq, 


54  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

(act  V.  sc.  ii.  1.  125).  Shakespeare's  farcical  comedy 
may  have  been  founded  on  a  play,  no  longer  extant, 
called  '  The  Historic  of  Error,'  which  was  acted  in 
1576  at  Hampton  Court.  In  subject-matter  it  resem- 
bles the  *  Menaechmi '  of  Plautus,  and  treats  of  mis- 
takes of  identity  arising  from  the  likeness  of  twin-born 
children.  The  scene  (act  iii.  sc.  i.)  in  which  Anti- 
pholus  of  Ephcsus  is  shut  out  from  his  own  house, 
while  his  brother  and  wife  are  at  dinner  within, 
recalls  one  in  the  '  Amphitruo  '  of  Plautus.  Shake- 
speare doubtless  had  direct  recourse  to  Plautus  as 
well  as  to  the  old  play,  and  he  may  have  read 
Plautus  in  English.  The  earliest  translation  of  the 
'  Menaechmi '  was  not  licensed  for  publication  before 
June  10,  1594,  and  was  not  published  until  the  fol- 
lowing year.  No  translation  of  any  other  play  of 
Plautus  appeared  before.  But  it  was  stated  in  the 
preface  to  this  first  published  translation  of  the 
*  Menaechmi '  that  the  translator,  W.W.,  doubtless 
William  Warner,  a  veteran  of  the  Elizabethan  world 
of  letters,  had  some  time  previously  '  Englished  '  that 
and  '  divers '  others  of  Plautus's  comedies,  and  had 
circulated  them  in  manuscript  '  for  the  use  of  and 
delight  of  his  private  friends,  who,  in  Plautus's  own 
words,  are  not  able  to  understand  them.' 

Such  plays  as  these,  although  each  gave  promise 
of  a  dramatic  capacity  out  of  the  common  way,  can- 
not be  with  certainty  pronounced  to  be  beyond  the 
ability  of  other  men.  It  was  in  '  Romeo,  and  TuHet,' 
Shakespeare's  first  tragedy,  that  he  proved  himself 
the  possessor  of   a  poetic  and  dramatic  instinct  of 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  55 

unprecedented  quality.  In  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  he 
turned  to  account  a  tragic  romance  of  Italian  origin/ 
'Romeo  which  was  already  popular  in  English  ver- 
and  Juliet."  gjons.  Arthur  Broke  rendered  it  into 
English  verse  from  the  Italian  of  Bandello  in  1562, 
and  William  Painter  had  published  it  in  prose  in 
his  'Palace  of  Pleasure'  in  1567.  Shakespeare  made 
little  change  in  the  plot  as  drawn  from  Bandello  by 
Broke,  but  he  impregnated  it  with  poetic  fervour, 
and  relieved  the  tragic  intensity  by  developing  the 
humour  of  Mercutio,  and  by  grafting  on  the  story 
the  new  comic  character  of  the  Nurse.^  The  ecstasy 
of  youthful  passion  is  portrayed  by  Shakespeare  in 
language  of  the  highest  lyric  beauty,  and  although  a 
predilection  for  quibbles  and  conceits  occasionally 
passes  beyond  the  author's  control,  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,' 
as  a  tragic  poem  on  the  theme  of  love,  has  no  rival  in 
any  literature.  If  the  Nurse's  remark,  '  'Tis  since  the 
earthquake  now  eleven  years '  (i.  iii.  23),  be  taken 
literally,  the  composition  of  the  play  must  be  referred 

1  The  story,  which  has  been  traced  back  to  the  Greek  romance 
of  Anihia  and  Abrocomas  by  Xenophon  Ephesius,  a  writer  of  the 
second  century,  seems  to  have  been  first  told  in  modern  Europe  about 
1470  by  Masuccio  in  his  A^ovellino  (No.  xxxiii. :  cf.  Mr.  Waters's  transla- 
tion, i.  155-65).  It  was  adapted  from  Masuccio  by  Luigi  da  Porto 
in  his  novel,  La  Gitdetia,  1535,  and  by  Bandello  in  his  Novelle,  1554, 
pt.  ii.  No.  ix.  Bandello's  version  became  classical ;  Belleforest  trans- 
lated it  in  his  Histoires  Tragiqiies,  Lyons,  1564.  At  the  same  time  as 
Shakespeare  was  writing  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Lope  de  Vega  was 
dramatising  the  tale  in  his  Spanish  play  called  Castelioiies  y  Alontisis 
{i.e.  Capulets  and  Montagus).  For  analysis  of  Lope's  play,  which 
ends  happily,  see  Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  xxi.  451-60. 

2  Cf.  Originals  and  Attalogues,  pt.  i.  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel,  New  Shak- 
spere  Society. 


56  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

to  1 591,  for  no  earthquake  in  the  sixteenth  century- 
was  experienced  in  England  after  1580.  There  are 
a  few  parallelisms  with  Daniel's  '  Complainte  of  Rosa- 
mond,' published  in  1592,  and  it  is  probable  that 
Shakespeare  completed  the  piece  in  that  year.  It  was 
first  printed  anonymously  and  surreptitiously  by  John 
Danter  in  1597  from  an  imperfect  acting  copy.  A 
second  quarto  of  1599  (by  T.  Creede  for  Cuthbert 
Burbie)  was  printed  from  an  authentic  version,  but 
the  piece  had  probably  undergone  revision  since  its 
first  production.^ 

Of  the  original  representation  on  the  stage  of  three 
other  pieces  of  the  period  we  have  more  explicit  in- 
formation. These  reveal  Shakespeare  undisguisedly 
as  an  adapter  of  plays  by  other  hands.  Though  they 
lack  the  interest  attaching  to  his  unaided  work,  they 
throw  invaluable  light  on  some  of  his  early  methods 
of  composition  and  his  early  relations  with  other 
dramatists. 

On  March  3,  1592,  a  new  piece,  called  'Henry 
VI,'  was  acted  at  the  Rose  Theatre  by  Lord  Strange's 
'Henry  men.  It  was  no  doubt  the  play  which  was 
^'^•'  subsequently  known  as  Shakespeare's  '  The 

First  Part  of  Henry  VI.'  On  its  first  performance  it 
won  a  popular  triumph.  'How  would  it  have  joyed 
brave  Talbot  (the  terror  of  the  French),'  wrote  Nash 
in  his  'Pierce  Pennilesse'  (1592,  licensed  August  8), 
in  reference  to  the  striking  scenes  of  Talbot's  death 
(act  iv.  sc.  vi.  and  vii.),  'to  thinke  that  after  he  had 

^  Cf.  Parallel  Texts,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel,  New  Shakspere  Society; 
Fleay,  Life,  pp.  191  seq. 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  57 

]yne  two  hundred  yeares  in  his  Tombe,  hee  should 
triumpheagaine  on  the  Stage,  and  have  his  bones  newe 
embalmed  with  the  teares  of  ten  thousand  spectators 
at  least  (at  severall  times)  who,  in  the  Tragedian  that 
represents  his  person,  imagine  they  behold  him  fresh 
bleeding  ! '  There  is  no  categorical  record  of  the 
production  of  a  second  piece  in  continuation  of  the 
theme,  but  such  a  play  quickly  followed ;  for  a  third 
piece,  treating  of  the  concluding  incidents  of  Henry 
VI's  reign,  attracted  much  attention  on  the  stage 
early  in  the  following  autumn. 

The  applause  attending  the  completion  of  this  his- 
torical trilogy  caused  bewilderment  in  the  theatrical 
profession.  The  older  dramatists  awoke  to  the  fact  that 
their  popularity  was  endangered  by  the  young  stranger 
who  had  set  up  his  tent  in  their  midst,  and  one  veteran 
uttered  without  delay  a  rancorous  protest.  Robert 
Greene,  who  died  on  September  3,  1592,  wrote  on  his 
deathbed  an  ill-natured  farewell  to  life,  entitled  '  A 
Greene's  Groats-worth  of  Wit  bought  with  a  Million 
attack.  Qf  Repentance.'  Addressing  three  brother 
dramatists  —  Marlowe,  Nash,  and  Peele  or  Lodge  —  he 
bade  them  beware  of  puppets  '  that  speak  from  our 
mouths,'  and  of  'antics  garnished  in  our  colours.' 
'  There  is,'  he  continued,  '  an  upstart  Crow,  beautified 
with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygcrs  heart  zvrapt  in 
a  players  hide  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bumbast 
out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best  of  you ;  and  being  an 
absolute  JoJiajines  factotum  is,  in  his  owne  conceit,  the 
only  Shake-scene  in  a  countrie.  .  .  .  Never  more 
acquaint  [those  apes]  with  your  admired  inventions, 


58  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

for  it  is  pity  men  of  such  rare  wits  should  be  subject 
to  the  pleasures  of  such  rude  groomes.'  The  'only 
Shake-scene  '  is  a  punning  denunciation  of  Shake- 
speare. The  tirade  was  probably  inspired  by  an 
established  author's  resentment  at  the  energy  of  a 
young  actor  —  the  theatre's  factotum  —  in  revising 
the  dramatic  work  of  his  seniors  with  such  masterly 
effect  as  to  imperil  their  hold  on  the  esteem  of 
manager  and  playgoer.  The  italicised  quotation 
travesties  a  line  from  the  third  piece  in  the  trilogy  of 
Shakespeare's  '  Henry  VI  ' : 

Oh  Tiger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  woman's  hide. 

But  Shakespeare's  amiability  of  character  and  versatile 
ability  had  already  won  him  admirers,  and  his  suc- 
cesses excited  the  sympathetic  regard  of  colleagues 
more  kindly  than  Greene.  In  December  1 592  Greene's 
publisher,  Henry  Chettle,  prefixed  an  apology  for 
Chettie's  Greene's  attack  on  the  young  actor  to  his 
apology.  (  Kind  Hartes  Dreame,'  a  tract  reflecting  on 
phases  of  contemporary  social  life.  *  I  am  as  sory,' 
Chettle  wrote,  '  as  if  the  originall  fault  had  beene  my 
fault,  because  myselfe  have  scene  his  [z.c.  Shake- 
speare's] demeanour  no  lesse  civill  than  he  [is]  exe- 
lent  in  the  qualitie  he  professes,  besides  divers  of 
worship  have  reported  his  uprightnes  of  dealing, 
which  argues  his  honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace  in 
writing  that  aprooves  his  art.' 

The  first  of  the  three  plays  dealing  with  the  reign 
of  Henry  VI  was  originally  published  in  the  collected 
edition  of  Shakespeare's  works  ;  the  second  and  third 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  59 

plays  were  previously  printed  in  a  form  very  dif- 
Divided  ferent  from  that  which  they  subsequently 
of '  Hen^'^  assumed  when  they  followed  the  first  part 
vi;  in  the  folio.     Criticism  has  proved  beyond 

doubt  that  in  these  plays  Shakespeare  did  no  more 
than  add,  revise,  and  correct  other  men's  work.  In 
'The  First  Part  of  Henry  VI'  the  scene  in  the 
Temple  Gardens,  where  white  and  red  roses  are 
plucked  as  emblems  by  the  rival  political  parties  (act 
ii.  sc.  iv.),  the  dying  speech  of  Mortimer,  and  perhaps 
tk^  wooing  of  Margaret  by  Suffolk,  alone  bear  the 
impress  of  his  style.  A  play  dealing  with  the  second 
part  of  Henry  VI 's  reign  was  published  anony- 
mously from  a  rough  stage  copy  in  1594,  with  the 
title  '  The  first  part  of  the  Contention  betwixt  the 
two  famous  houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster.'  A 
play  dealing  with  the  third  part  was  published  with 
greater  care  next  year  under  the  title  '  The  True 
Tragedie  of  Richard,  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  the  death 
of  good  King  Henry  the  Sixt,  as  it  was  sundrie 
times  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  his  servants.' 
In  both  these  plays  Shakespeare's  revising  hand  can 
be  traced.  The  humours  of  Jack  Cade  in  '  The 
Contention '  can  owe  their  savour  to  him  alone. 
After  he  had  hastily  revised  the  original  drafts  of 
the  three  pieces,  perhaps  with  another's  aid,  they 
were  put  on  the  stage  in  1592,  the  first  two  parts 
by  his  own  company  (Lord  Strange's  men),  and 
the  third,  under  some  exceptional  arrangement,  by 
Lord  Pembroke's  men.  But  Shakespeare  was  not 
content  to  leave  them  thus.     Within  a  brief  interval, 


6o  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

possibly  for  a  revival,  he  undertook  a  more  thorough 
revision,  still  in  conjunction  with  another  writer. 
'  The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  '  was  thoroughly- 
overhauled,  and  was  converted  into  what  was  en- 
titled in  the  folio  '  The  Second  Part  of  Henry  VI  '  ; 
there  more  than  half  the  lines  are  new.  '  The  True 
Tragedie,'  which  became  '  The  Third  Part  of  Henry 
VI,'  was  less  drastically  handled ;  two-thirds  of  it 
was  left  practically  untouched ;  only  a  third  was 
thoroughly  remodelled.^ 

Who  Shakespeare's  coadjutors  were  in  the  two 
successive  revisions  of  '  Henry  VI,'  is  matter  for  con- 
Shake-  jecture.  The  theory  that  Greene  and  Peele 
speare's  produccd  the  original  draft  of  the  three 
coa  jutors.   p^j.^g  ^f   <  pjej-^j-y  yj^'  which    Shakespeare 

recast,  may  help  to  account  for  Greene's  indignant 
denunciation  of  Shakespeare  as  'an  upstart  crow, 
beautified  with  the  feathers '  of  himself  and  his 
fellow-dramatists.  Much  can  be  said,  too,  in  behalf 
of  the  suggestion  that  Shakespeare  joined  Marlowe, 
the. greatest  of  his  predecessors,  in  the  first  revision 
of  which  '  The  Contention  '  and  the  '  True  Tragedie ' 
were  the  outcome.  Most  of  the  new  passages  in  the 
second  recension  seem  assignable  to  Shakespeare 
alone,  but  a  few  suggest  a  partnership  resembling 
that  of  the  first  revision.  It  is  probable  that  Marlowe 
began  the  final  revision,  but  his  task  was  interrupted 
by  his  death,  and  the  lion's  share  of  the  work  fell  to 
his  younger  coadjutor. 

'  Cf.  Fleay,  Life,  pp.  235  seq. ;  Trails.  N'ew  Shnkspere  Soc,  1876, 
pt.  ii.  by  Miss  Jane  Lee;   Swinburne,  Study,  pp.  51  seq. 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  6 1 

Shakespeare  shared  with  other  men  of  genius  that 
receptivity  of  mind  which  impels  them  to  assimilate 
much  of  the  intellectual  effort  of  their  contemporaries 
and  to  transmute  it  in  the  process  from  unvalued  ore 
into  pure  gold.  Had  Shakespeare  not  been  profes- 
sionally employed  in  recasting  old  plays  by  contem- 
poraries, he  would  doubtless  have  shown  in  his 
writings  traces  of  a  study  of  their  work.  The  verses 
of  Thomas  Watson,  Samuel  Daniel,  Michael  Drayton, 
Shake-  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  Thomas  Lodge  were 
sfmortivr'  certainly  among  the  rills  which  fed  the 
power.  mighty  river  of  his  poetic  and  lyric  in- 
vention. Kyjd  and  Greene,  among  rival  writers  of 
tragedy,  left  more  or  less  definite  impression  on  all 
Shakespeare's  early  efforts  in  tragedy.  It  was,  how- 
ever, only  to  two  of  his  fellow-dramatists  that  his 
indebtedness  as  a  writer  of  either  comedy  or  tragedy 
was  material  or  emphatically  defined.  Superior  as 
Shakespeare's  powers  were  to  those  of  Marlowe,  his 
coadjutor  in  '  Henry  VI,'  his  early  tragedies  often 
reveal  him  in  the  character  of  a  faithful  disciple  of 
that  vehement  delineator  of  tragic  passion.  Shake- 
speare's early  comedies  disclose  a  like  relationship 
between  him  and  Lyly. 

Lyly  is  best  known  as  the  author  of  the  affected 
romance  of  '  Euphues,'  but  between  1580  and  1592 
T  ,  ,  ■        he  produced  eight  trivial  and  insubstantial 

Lyly  s  in-  i  » 

fluence  in  comcdics,  of  which  six  were  written  in  prose, 
come  y.  ^^^  ^^^^  .^  blank  verse,  and  one  was  in  rhyme. 
Much  of  the  dialogue  in  Shakespeare's  comedies,  from 
'  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  to  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,' 


62  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

consists  in  thrusting  and  parrying  fantastic  conceits, 
puns,  or  antitheses.  This  is  the  style  of  intercourse  in 
which  most  of  Lyly's  characters  exclusively  indulge. 
Three-fourths  of  Lyly's  comedies  lightly  revolve 
about  topics  of  classical  or  fairy  mythology  —  in  the 
very  manner  which  Shakespeare  first  brought  to  a 
triumphant  issue  in  his  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.' 
Shakespeare's  treatment  of  eccentric  character  like 
Don  Armado  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  and  his  boy 
Moth  reads  like  a  reminiscence  of  Lyly's  portrayal  of 
Sir  Thopas,  a  fat  vainglorious  knight,  and  his  boy 
Epiton  in  the  comedy  of  *  Endymion,'  while  the  watch- 
men in  the  same  play  clearly  adumbrate  Shake- 
speare's Dogberry  and  Verges.  The  device  of  mascu- 
line disguise  for  love-sick  maidens  was  characteristic 
of  Lyly's  method  before  Shakespeare  ventured  on 
it  for  the  first  of  many  times  in  '  Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona,'  and  the  dispersal  through  Lyly's  comedies 
of  songs  possessing  every  lyrical  charm  is  not  the 
least  interesting  of  the  many  striking  features  which 
Shakespeare's  achievements  in  comedy  seem  to 
borrow  from  Lyly's  comparatively  insignificant 
experiments.^ 

Marlowe,  who  alone  of  Shakespeare's  contem- 
poraries can  be  credited  with  exerting  on  his  efforts 

1  In  later  life  Shakespeare,  in  Hamlet,  borrows  from  Lyly's 
Euphiics  Polonius's  advice  to  Laertes;  but,  however  he  may  have 
regarded  the  moral  sentiment  of  that  didactic  romance,  he  had  no 
respect  for  the  affectations  of  its  prose  style,  which  he  ridiculed  in 
a  familiar  passage  in  i  Henry  IV,  ii.  iv.  445:  'For  though  the 
camomile,  the  more  it  is  trodden  on,  the  faster  it  grows,  yet  youth  the 
more  it  is  wasted,  the  sooner  it  wears.' 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  63 

in  tragedy  a  really  substantial  influence,  was  in 
,,   ,      .      ii;q2   and  1503  at  the  zenith  of   his  fame. 

Marlowe  s         -'-'  ■'■^^ 

influencein  Two  of  Shakespcare's  earliest  historical 
tragedy.  tragedies,  'Richard  III'  and  'Richard  II,' 
with  the  story  of  Shylock  in  his  somewhat  later 
comedy  of  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice,'  plainly  disclose 
a  conscious  resolve  to  follow  in  Marlowe's  footsteps. 
In  *  Richard  III '  Shakespeare,  working  singlehanded, 
takes  up  the  history  of  England  near  the  point  at 
which  Marlowe  and  he,  apparently  working  in  partner- 
ship, left  it  in  the  third  part  of  '  Henry  VI.'  The 
subject  was  already  familiar  to  dramatists,  but 
Shakespeare  sought  his  materials  in  the  '  Chronicle ' 
of  Holinshed.  A  Latin  piece,  by  Dr.  Thomas  Legge, 
had  been  in  favour  with  academic  audiences  since  1 579, 
Richard  and  in  1594  the  'True  Tragedie  of  Richard 
^^^•'  III '  from  some  other  pen  was  published  ano- 

nymously ;  but  Shakespeare's  piece  bears  little  resem- 
blance to  either.  Throughout  Shakespeare's  '  Richard 
III '  the  effort  to  emulate  Marlowe  is  undeniable.  The 
tragedy  is,  says  Mr.  Swinburne,  '  as  fiery  in  passion,  as 
single  in  purpose,  as  rhetorical  often,  though  never  so 
inflated  in  expression,  as  Marlowe's  "  Tamburlaine  " 
itself.'  The  turbulent  piece  was  naturally  popular. 
Burbage's  impersonation  of  the  hero  was  one  of  his 
most  effective  performances,  and  his  vigorous  enun- 
ciation of  '  A  horse,  a  horse !  my  kingdom  for  a 
horse ! '  gave  the  line  proverbial  currency. 

'  Richard  II '  seems  to  have  followed  '  Richard  III ' 
without  delay.  Subsequently  both  were  published 
anonymously  in  the  same   year  (1597)  as  they  had 


64  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

'been  publikely  acted  by  the  right  Honorable  the 
Lorde  Chamberlaine  his  servants ' ;  but  the  de- 
position scene  in  '  Richard  II,'  which  dealt  with  a 
topic  distasteful  to  the  Queen,  was  omitted  from  the 
•Richard  early  impressions.  Prose  is  avoided  through- 
'!•'  out  the  play,  a  certain  sign  of  early  work. 

The  piece  was  probably  composed  very  early  in 
1 593.  Marlowe's  tempestuous  vein  is  less  apparent  in 
'  Richard  II '  than  in  '  Richard  III.'  But  if  '  Richard  II ' 
be  in  style  and  treatment  less  deeply  indebted 
to  Marlowe  than  its  predecessor,  it  was  clearly 
suggested  by  Marlowe's  '  Edward  II.'  Throughout 
its  exposition  of  the  leading  theme  —  the  development 
and  collapse  of  the  weak  king's  character — Shake- 
speare's historical  tragedy  closely  imitates  Marlowe's. 
Shakespeare  drew  the  facts  from  Holinshed,  but  his 
embellishments  are  numerous,  and  include  the  mag- 
nificently eloquent  eulogy  of  England  which  is  set  in 
the  mouth  of  John  of  Gaunt. 

In  '  As  You  Like  It '  (iii.  v.  80)  Shakespeare 
parenthetically  commemorated  his  acquaintance  with, 
Acknow-  and  his  general  indebtedness  to,  the  elder 
Io^'mT-"*^  dramatist  by  apostrophising  him  in  the 
lowe.  lines : 

Dead  Shepherd  1  now  I  find  thy  saw  of  might : 
'  Who  ever  loved  that  loved  not  at  first  sight?' 

The  second  line  is  a  quotation  from  Marlowe's  poem 
'  Hero  and  Leander'  (line  ^6).  In  the  '  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor'  (in.  i.  17-21)  Shakespeare  places  in  the 
mouth  of  Sir   Hugh   Evans  snatches  of  verse  from 


EARLY    DRAMATIC    EFFORTS  6$ 

Marlowe's  charming  lyric,  '  Come  live  with  me  and  be 
my  love.' 

Between  February  1593  and  the  end  of  the  year 
the  London  theatres  were  closed,  owing  to  the  pre- 
valence of  the  plague,  and  Shakespeare  doubtless 
travelled  with  his  company  in  the  country.  But  his 
pen  was  busily  employed,  and  before  the  close  of 
1594  he  gave  marvellous  proofs  of  his  rapid  powers 
of  production. 

'  Titus  Andronicus '  was  in  his  own  lifetime 
claimed  for  Shakespeare,  but  Edward  Ravenscroft, 
•Titus  An-  who  prepared  a  new  version  in  1678,  wrote 
dronicus."  of  it :  'I  have  been  told  by  some  anciently 
conversant  with  the  stage  that  it  was  not  originally 
his,  but  brought  by  a  private  author  to  be  acted,  and 
he  only  gave  some  master-touches  to  one  or  two 
of  the  principal  parts  or  characters.'  Ravenscroft's 
assertion  deserves  acceptance.  The  tragedy,  a  san- 
guinary picture  of  the  decadence  of  Imperial  Rome, 
contains  powerful  lines  and  situations,  but  is  far  too 
repulsive  in  plot  and  treatment,  and  too  ostentatious 
in  classical  allusions,  to  take  rank  with  Shakespeare's 
acknowledged  work.  Ben  Jonson  credits  '  Titus 
Andronicus '  with  a  popularity  equalling  Kyd's 
*  Spanish  Tragedy,'  and  internal  evidence  shows  that 
Kyd  was  capable  of  writing  much  of  'Titus.'  It 
was  suggested  by  a  piece  called  '  Titus  and  Vespasian,' 
which  Lord  Strange' s  men  played  on  April  11,  1592  ;^ 
this  is  only  extant  in  a  German  version  acted  by 
English   players     in    Germany,     and     published     in 

F  ^  Henslowe,  p.  24. 


66  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

1620.^  '  Titus  Andronicus'  was  obviously  taken  in  hand 
soon  after  the  production  of  '  Titus  and  Vespasian,' 
in  order  to  exploit  popular  interest  in  the  topic.  It 
was  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Sussex's  men  on  January 
23,  1593-4,  when  it  was  described  as  a  new  piece; 
but  that  it  was  also  acted  subsequently  by  Shake- 
speare's company  is  shown  by  the  title-page  of  the 
first  extant  edition  of  1600,  which  describes  it  as 
having  been  performed  by  the  Earl  of  Derby's  and 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  servants  (successive  titles  of 
Shakespeare's  company),  as  well  as  by  those  of  the 
Earls  of  Pembroke  and  Sussex.  It  was  entered  on 
the  '  Stationers'  Register '  to  John  Danter  on  February 
6,  1594.'^  Langbaine  claims  to  have  seen  an  edition 
of  this  date,  but  none  earlier  than  that  of  1600  is  now 
known. 

For  part  of  the  plot  of  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice,' 
in  which  two  romantic  love  stories  are  skilfully 
blended  with  a  theme  of  tragic  import,  Shakespeare 
had  recourse  to  '  II  Pecorone,'  a  fourteenth-century 
•Merchant  Collection  of  Italian  novels  by  Ser  Giovanni 
of  Venice.'  Fiorentino.^  There  a  Jewish  creditor  de- 
mands a  pound  of  flesh  of  a  defaulting  Christian 
debtor,  and  the  latter  is  rescued  through  the  advo- 
cacy of  '  the  lady  of  Belmont,'  who  is  wife  of  the 
debtor's  friend.     The  management  of  the  plot  in  the 

1  Cf.  Cohn,  Shakespeare  in  Germany,  pp.  I {5  seq. 

2  Arber,  ii.  644. 

3  Cf.-W.  G.  Waters's  translation  of  //  Pecorone,  pp.  44-60  (fourth 
day,  novel  i).  The  collection  was  not  published  till  1558,  and  the 
story  followed  by  Shakespeare  was  not  accessible  in  his  day  in  any 
language  but  the  original  Italian. 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  6/ 

Italian  novel  is  closely  followed  by  Shakespeare. 
A  similar  story  is  slenderly  outlined  in  the  popu- 
lar mediaeval  collection  of  anecdotes  called  '  Gesta 
Romanorum,'  while  the  tale  of  the  caskets,  which 
Shakespeare  combined  with  it  in  the  '  Merchant,'  is  told 
independently  in  another  portion  of  the  same  work. 
But  Shakespeare's  '  Merchant '  owes  much  to  other 
sources,  including  more  than  one  old  play.  Stephen 
Gosson  describes  in  his  '  Schoole  of  Abuse'  (1579) 
a  lost  play  called  '  the  Jew  .  .  .  showne  at  the  Bull 
[inn]  .  .  .  representing  the  greedinesse  of  worldly 
chusers  and  bloody  mindes  of  usurers.'  This  descrip- 
tion suggests  that  the  two  stories  of  the  pound  of 
flesh  and  the  caskets  had  been  combined  before 
for  purposes  of  dramatic  representation.  The  scenes 
in  Shakespeare's  play  in  which  Antonio  negotiates 
with  Shylock  are  roughly  anticipated,  too,  by 
dialogues  between  a  Jewish  creditor  Gerontus  and 
a  Christian  debtor  in  the  extant  play  of  '  The  Three 
Ladies  of  London,'  by  R[obert]  W[ilson],  1584. 
There  the  Jew  opens  the  attack  on  his  Christian 
debtor  with  the  lines  : 

Signer  Mercatore,  why  do  you  not  pay  me  ?  Think  you  I  will  be 
mocked  in  this  sort  ? 

This  three  times  you  have  flouted  me  —  it  seems  you  make  thereat  a 
sport. 

Truly  pay  me  my  money,  and  that  even  now  presently, 

Or  by  mighty  Mahomet,  I  swear  I  will  forthwith  arrest  thee. 

Subsequently,  when  the  judge  is  passing  judgment  in 
favour  of  the  debtor,  the  Jew  interrupts : 

Stay,  there,  most  puissant  judge.  Signer  Mercatore,  consider  what 
you  do. 

Pay  me  the  principal,  as  for  the  interest  I  forgive  it  you. 


68  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Above  all  is  it  of  interest  to  note  that  Shakespeare 
in  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice  '  betrays  the  last  defina- 
ble traces  of  his  discipleship  to  Marlowe.  Although 
the  delicate  comedy  which  lightens  the  serious  interest 
sh  lock  ^^  Shakespeare's  play  sets  it  in  a  wholly  dif- 
and  Rode-  fercut  Category  from  that  of  Marlowe's  'Jew 
ngo  opez.  ^^  Malta,'  the  humanised  portrait  of  the  Jew 
Shylock  embodies  distinct  reminiscences  of  Marlowe's 
caricature  of  the  Jew  Barabbas.  But  Shakespeare 
soon  outpaced  his  master,  and  the  inspiration  that 
he  drew  from  Marlowe  in  the  *  Merchant '  touches 
only  the  general  conception  of  the  central  figure. 
Doubtless  the  popular  interest  aroused  by  the  trial 
in  February  1594  and  the  execution  in  June  of  the 
Queen's  Jewish  physician,  Roderigo  Lopez,  incited 
Shakespeare  to  a  new  and  subtler  study  of  Jewish 
character.^     For  Shylock  (not  the  merchant  Antonio) 

^  Lopez  was  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  physician  before  1586,  and  the 
Queen's  chief  physician  from  that  date.  An  accomplished  linguist,  with 
friends  in  all  parts  of  Europe,  he  acted  in  1590  at  the  request  of  the  Earl 
of  Essex  as  interpreter  to  Antonio  Perez,  a  victim  of  Philip  IPs  perse- 
cution, whom  Essex  and  his  associates  brought  to  England  in  order  to 
stimulate  the  hostility  of  the  English  public  to  Spain.  Don  Antonio  (as 
the  refugee  was  popularly  called)  proved  querulous  and  exacting.  A 
quarrel  between  Lopez  and  Essex  followed.  Spanish  agents  in  London 
offered  Lopez  a  bribe  to  poison  Antonio  and  the  Queen.  The  evidence 
that  he  assented  to  the  murderous  proposal  is  incomplete,  but  he  was 
convicted  of  treason,  and,  although  the  Queen  long  delayed  signing  his 
death-warrant,  he  was  hanged  at  Tyburn  on  June  7,  1594.  His  trial 
and  execution  evoked  a  marked  display  of  anti-Semitism  on  the  part 
of  the  London  populace.  Very  few  Jews  were  domiciled  in  England 
at  the  time.  That  a  Christian  named  Antonio  should  be  the  cause  of 
the  ruin  alike  of  the  greatest  Jew  in  Elizabethan  England  and  of  the 
greatest  Jew  of  the  Elizabethan  drama  is  a  curious  confirmation  of  the 
theory  that  Lopez   was  the  begetter  of  Shylock.     Cf.  the  article  on 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  69 

is  the  hero  of  the  play,  and  the  main  interest  cul- 
minates in  the  Jew's  trial  and  discomfiture.  The 
bold  transition  from  that  solemn  scene  which 
trembles  on  the  brink  of  tragedy  to  the  gently 
poetic  and  humorous  incidents  of  the  concluding 
act  attests  a  mastery  of  stagecraft ;  but  the  in- 
terest, although  it  is  sustained  to  the  end,  is,  after 
Shylock's  final  exit,  pitched  in  a  lower  key.  The 
'Venesyon  Comedy,'  which  Henslowe,  the  manager, 
produced  at  the  Rose  on  August  25,  1594,  was  pro- 
bably the  earliest  version  of  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice,' 
and  it  was  revised  later.  It  was  not  published  till 
1600,  when  two  editions  appeared,  each  printed  from 
a  different  stage  copy. 

To  1594  must  also  be  assigned  'King  John,' 
which,  like  the  '  Comedy  of  Errors  '  and  '  Richard  II,' 
altogether  eschews  prose.  The  piece,  which  was  not 
printed  till  1623,  was  directly  adapted  from  a  worthless 
'King  play    called  'The   Troublesome   Raigne  of 

John."  King  John '  (1591),  which  was  fraudulently 

reissued  in  161 1  as  *  written  by  W.  Sh.,'  and  in  1622  as 
by  '  W.  Shakespeare.'  There  is  very  small  ground  for 
associating  Marlowe's  name  with  the  old  play.  Into 
the  adaptation  Shakespeare  flung  all  his  energy,  and 
the  theme  grew  under  his  hand  into  genuine  tragedy. 
The  three  chief  characters  —  the  mean  and  cruel  king, 

Roderigo  Lopez  in  the  Dictionary  of  A^ational  Biography ;  'The 
Original  of  Shylock,'  by  the  present  writer,  in  Gent.  Mag.,  February 
1880  ;  Dr.  H.  Graetz,  Shylock  in  den  Sagen,  in  den  Dramen  und  in 
der  Geschichte,  Krotoschin,  1880  ;  New  Shakspere  Sac.  Trans.,  1887-92, 
pt.  ii.  158-92;  'The  Conspiracy  of  Dr.  Lopez,'  by  the  Rev.  Arthur 
Diinock,  in  English  Historical  Review  (1894),  ix.  440  seq. 


70  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  noblehearted  and  desperately  wronged  Constance, 
and  the  soldierly  humourist,  Faulconbridge  —  are  in  all 
essentials  of  his  own  invention,  and  are  portrayed 
with  the  same  sureness  of  touch  that  marked  in 
Shylock  his  rapidly  maturing  strength.  The  scene,  in 
which  the  gentle  boy  Arthur  learns  from  Hubert  that 
the  king  has  ordered  his  eyes  to  be  put  out,  is  as 
affecting  as  any  passage  in  tragic  literature. 

At  the  close  of  1594  a  performance  of  Shake- 
speare's early  farce,  'The  Comedy  of  Errors,'  gave 
him  a  passing  notoriety  that  he  could  well  have 
spared.  The  piece  was  played  on  the  evening  of 
Innocents'  Day  (December  28),  1594,  in  the  hall 
'Comedy  of  Gray's  Inn,  before  a  crowded  audience 
ofEiiois      ^£    benchers,    students,    and   their    friends. 

in  Gray  s  '  ' 

Inn  Hall.  There  was  some  disturbance  during  the 
evening  on  the  part  of  guests  from  the  Inner  Temple, 
who,  dissatisfied  with  the  accommodation  afforded 
them,  retired  in  dudgeon.  '  So  that  night,'  the  con- 
temporary chronicler  states,  'was  begun  and  con- 
tinued to  the  end  in  nothing  but  confusion  and  errors, 
whereupon  it  was  ever  afterwards  called  the  "  Night 
of  Errors."'^  Shakespeare  was  acting  on  the  same 
day  before  the  Queen  at  Greenwich,  and  it  is  doubtful 
if  he  were  present.  On  the  morrow  a  commission 
of  oyer  and  terminer  inquired  into  the  causes  of  the 
tumult,  which  was  attributed  to  a  sorcerer  having 
'foisted  a  company  of  base  and  common  fellows  to 

1  Gesta  Grayoriim,  printed  in  1 688  from  a  contemporary  manu- 
script. A  second  performance  of  the  Co?nedy  of  Errors  was  given  at 
Gray's  Inn  Hall  by  the  Elizabethan  Stage  Society  on  Dec.  6,  1895. 


EARLY  DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  7 1 

make  up  our  disorders  with  a  play  of  errors  and  con- 
fusions.' 

Two  plays  of  uncertain  authorship  attracted  public 
attention  during  the  period  under  review  (i 591-4)  — 

*  Arden  of  Feversham '  (licensed  for  publication  April  3, 
1 592,  and  published  in  1 592)  and '  Edward  III'  (licensed 
for  publication  December  i,  1595,  and  published  in 
1596).  Shakespeare's  hand  has  been  traced  in  both, 
mainly  on  the  ground  that  their  dramatic  energy  is  of 
a  quality  not  to  be  discerned  in  the  work  of  any 
contemporary  whose  writings  are  extant.  There 
is  no  external  evidence  in  favour  of  Shakespeare's 
authorship  in  either  case.  '  Arden  of  Feversham  * 
Early  plays  dramatiscs  with  intensity  and  insight  a 
doubtfully    sordid  murder  of  a  husband  by  a  wife  which 

assigned  to 

Shake-  took  placc  at  Faversham  m  1551,  and  was 
speare.  fully  reported  by  Holinshed.  The  subject 
is  of  a  different  type  from  any  which  Shakespeare  is 
known  to  have  treated,  and  although  the  play  may  be, 
as  Mr.  Swinburne  insists,  *  a  young  man's  work,'  it 
bears  no  relation  either  in  topic  or  style  to  the  work 
on  which  young  Shakespeare  was  engaged  at  a  period 
so  early  as  1591  or  1592.  '  Edward  III '  is  a  play  in 
Marlowe's  vein,  and  has  been  assigned  to  Shakespeare 
on  even  more  shadowy  grounds.  Capell  reprinted  it 
in    his    'Prolusions'    in    1760,    and    described   it   as 

*  thought  to  be  writ  by  Shakespeare.'  Many  speeches 
scattered  through  the  drama,  and  one  whole  scene  — • 
that  in  which  the  Countess  of  Salisbury  repulses  the 
advances  of  Edward  III  — show  the  hand  of  a  master 
(act  ii.   sc.    ii.).     But  there  is  even  in  the  style  of 


72  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

these  contributions  much  to  dissociate  them  from 
Shakespeare's  acknowledged  productions,  and  to 
justify  their  ascription  to  some  less  gifted  disciple  of 
Marlowe.^  A  line  in  act  ii.  sc.  i.  ('  Lilies  that  fester 
smell  far  worse  than  weeds ' )  reappears  in  Shake- 
speare's 'Sonnets'  (xciv.  1.  14).^  It  was  contrary  to 
his  practice  to  literally  plagiarise  himself.  The  line 
in  the  play  was  doubtless  borrowed  from  a  manu- 
script copy  of  the  '  Sonnets.' 

Two  other  popular  plays  of  the  period,  '  Muce- 
dorus,'  and  '  Faire  Em,'  have  also  been  assigned  to 
'Muce-  Shakespeare  on  slighter  provocation.  In 
dorus.'  Charles  II's  library  they  were  bound  to- 
gether in  a  volume  labelled  '  Shakespeare,  Vol.  I,'  and 
bold  speculators  have  occasionally  sought  to  justify 
the  misnomer. 

'  Mucedorus,'  an  elementary  effort  in  romantic 
comedy,  dates  from  the  early  years  of  Elizabeth's 
reign ;  it  was  first  published,  doubtless  after  under- 
going revision,  in  1595,  and  was  reissued,  'amplified 
with  new  additions,'  in  1610.  Mr.  Payne  Collier,  who 
included  it  in  his  privately  printed  edition  of  Shake- 
speare in  1878,  was  confident  that  a  scene  interpolated 
in  the  16 10  version  (in  which  the  King  of  Valentia 
laments  the  supposed  loss  of  his  son)  displayed 
genius  which  Shakespeare  alone  could  compass. 
However  readily  critics  may  admit  the  superiority  in 
literary  value  of  the  interpolated  scene  to  anything 
else  in  the  piece,  few  will  accept  Mr.  Collier's  ex- 
travagant estimate.     The  scene  was  probably  from 

^  Cf.  Swinburne,  Study  of  Shakspere,  pp.  231-74.  ^  gee  p.  89. 


EARLY   DRAMATIC   EFFORTS  73 

the  pen  of  an  admiring  but  faltering  imitator  of 
Shakespeare.^ 

'  Faire  Em,'  although  not  published  till  163 1,  was 
acted  by  Shakespeare's  company  while  Lord  Strange 
'Faire  was  its  patron,  and  some  lines  from  it  are 
^'"•'  quoted  for  purposes  of  ridicule  by  Robert 

Greene  in  his  'Farewell  to  Folly'  in  1592.  It  is 
another  rudimentary  endeavour  in  romantic  comedy, 
and  has  not  even  the  pretension  of  '  Mucedorus '  to 
one  short  scene  of  conspicuous  literary  merit. 

1  Cf.  Dodsley's  Old  Plays,  ed.  W.  C.  Hazlitt,  1874,  ii.  236-8. 


74  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

VI 

THE  FIRST  APPEAL   TO    THE  READING  PUBLIC 

During  the  busy  years  (i  591-4)  that  witnessed 
his  first  pronounced  successes  as  a  dramatist,  Shake- 
speare came  before  the  public  in  yet  another  literary 
capacity.  On  April  18,  1593,  Richard  Field,  the 
printer,  who  was  his  fellow-townsman,  obtained  a 
license  for  the  publication  of  '  Venus  and  Adonis,'  a 
Pubiica-  m.etrical  version  of  a  classical  tale  of  love. 
'Venus and  ^^  ^^^^  published  a  month  or  two  later,  with- 
Adonis.'  out  an  author's  name  on  the  title-page,  but 
Shakespeare  appended  his  full  name  to  the  dedication, 
which  he  addressed  in  conventional  style  to  Henry 
Wriothesley,  third  earl  of  Southampton.  The  Earl, 
who  was  in  his  twentieth  year,  was  reckoned  the 
handsomest  man  at  Court,  with  a  pronounced  dispo- 
sition to  gallantry.  He  had  vast  possessions,  was 
well  educated,  loved  literature,  and  through  life 
extended  to  men  of  letters  a  generous  patronage.^ 
'  I  know  not  how  I  shall  offend,'  Shakespeare  now 
wrote  to  him,  '  in  dedicating  my  unpolished  lines 
to  your  lordship,  nor  how  the  world  will  censure  me 
for  choosing  so  strong  a  prop  to  support  so  weak 
a  burden.  .  .  .  But  if  the  first  heir  of  my  invention 
prove  deformed,  I  shall  be  sorry  it  had  so  noble 
a    godfather.'       *  The  first    heir    of    my    invention ' 

1  See  Appendix,  Sections  III.  and  IV. 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO   THE   READING   PUBLIC  75 

implies  that  the  poem  was  written,  or  at  least 
designed,  before  Shakespeare's  dramatic  work.  It  is 
affluent  in  beautiful  imagery  and  metrical  sweetness, 
but  imbued  with  a  tone  of  license  which  may  be  held 
either  to  justify  the  theory  that  it  was  a  precocious 
product  of  the  author's  youth,  or  to  show  that  Shake- 
speare was  not  unready  in  mature  years  to  write  with 
a  view  to  gratifying  a  patron's  somewhat  lascivious 
tastes.  The  title-page  bears  a  beautiful  Latin  motto 
from  Ovid's  'Amores  '  :^ 

Vilia  miretur  vulgus;   mihi  flavus  Apollo 
Pocula  Castalia  plena  ministret  aqua. 

The  influence  of  Ovid,  wiio  told  the  story  in  his 
*  Metamorphoses,'  is  apparent  in  many  of  the  details. 
But  the  theme  was  doubtless  first  suggested  to 
Shakespeare  by  a  contemporary  effort.  Lodge's 
'  Scillas  Metamorphosis,'  which  appeared  in  1589,  is 
not  only  written  in  the  same  metre  (six-line  stanzas 
rhyming  a  b  a  b  c  c),  but  narrates  in  the  exordium 
the  same  incidents  in  the  same  spirit.  There  is 
little  doubt  that  Shakespeare  drew  from  Lodge  some 
of  his  inspiration.^ 

^  See  Ovid's  Amores,  liber  i.  elegy  xv.  11.  35-6.  Ovid's  Amores, 
or  Elegies  of  Love,  were  translated  by  Marlowe  about  1589,  and  were 
first  printed  without  a  date  on  the  title-page,  probably  about  1597. 
Marlowe's  version  had  probably  been  accessible  in  manuscript  in  the 
eight  years'  interval.  Marlowe  rendered  the  lines  quoted  by  Shake- 
speare thus : 

Let  base  conceited  wits  admire  vile  things, 
Fair  Phosbus  lead  me  to  the  Muses'  springs! 

2  Shakespeare's  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Lodge's  Scillas  Metamor- 
phosis^ by  James  P.  Reardon,  in  '  Shakespeare  Society's  Papers,'  iii. 


^6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

A  year  after  the  issue  of  '  Venus  and  Adonis,' 
in  1 594,  Shakespeare  published  another  poem  in 
like  vein,  but  far  more  mature  in  temper  and  execu- 
tion. The  digression  (11.  939-59)  on  the  destroying 
power  of  Time,  especially,  is  in  an  exalted  key  of  medi- 
tation which  is  not  sounded  in  the  earlier  poem.  The 
metre,  too,  is  changed  ;  seven-line  stanzas  (Chaucer's 
rhyme  royal,  a  b  a  b  b  c  c)  take  the  place  of  six-line 
stanzas.  The  second  poem  was  entered  in  the  '  Sta- 
tioners' Registers'  on  ?^Iay  9,  1594,  under  the  title  of 
'  A    Booke    intitled    the    Ravyshement    of 

'Lucrece.'  ,„,,., 

Lucrece,  and  was  published  m  the  same  year 
under  the  title  '  Lucrece.'  Richard  Field  printed  it, 
and  John  Harrison  published  and  sold  it  at  the  sign 
of  the  White  Greyhound  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard. 
The  classical  story  of  Lucretia's  ravishment  and 
suicide  is  briefly  recorded  in  Ovid's  *  Fasti,'  but 
Chaucer  had  retold  it  in  his  '  Legend  of  Good 
Women,'  and  Shakespeare  must  have  read  it  there. 
Again,  in  topic  and  metre,  the  poem  reflected  a 
contemporary  poet's  work.     Samuel  Daniel's  '  Com- 

143-6.     Cf.  Lodge's  description  of  Venus's  discovery  of  the  wounded 

Adonis : 

Her  daintie  hand  addrest  to  dawe  her  deere, 
Her  roseall  lip  alied  to  his  pale  cheeke, 
Her  sighs  and  then  her  lookes  and  heavie  cheere, 
Her  bitter  threates,  and  then  her  passions  meeke", 

How  on  his  senseless  corpse  she  lay  a-crying, 
As  if  the  boy  were  then  but  new  a-dying. 

In  the  minute  description  in  Shakespeare's  poem  of  the  chase  of 
the  hare  (11.  673-708)  there  are  curious  resemblances  to  the  Ode  de  la 
Chasse  (on  a  stag  hunt)  by  the  French  dramatist,  Estienne  Jodelle,  in 
his  (Euvres  et  Meslanges  Poetiques,  1574. 


FIRST   APrEAI,  TO   THE   READING    PUBLIC  J  J 

plaint  of  Rosamond,'  with  its  seven-line  stanza 
(1592),  stood  to  '  Lucrece  '  in  even  closer  relation 
than  Lodge's  '  Scilla,'  with  its  six-line  stanza,  to 
'Venus  and  Adonis.'  The  pathetic  accents  of  Shake- 
speare's heroine  are  those  of  Daniel's  heroine  purified 
and  glorified. 1  The  passage  of  Time  is  elaborated 
from  one  in  Watson's  '  Passionate  Centurie  of  Love  ' 
(No.  Ixxvii.).'-^  Shakespeare  dedicated  his  second 
volume  of  poetry  to  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  the 
patron  of  his  first.  He  addressed  him  in  terms  of 
devoted  friendship,  which  were  not  uncommon  at  the 
time  in  communications  between  patrons  and  poets, 
but  suggest  that  Shakespeare's  relations  with  the 
brilliant   young   nobleman    had   grown    closer   since 

1  Rosamond,  in  Daniel's  poem,  muses  thus  when  King  Henry 
challenges  her  honour : 

But  what  ?  he  is  my  King  and  may  constraine  me; 
Whether  I  yeeld  or  not,  I  live  defamed. 
The  World  will  thinke  Authoritie  did  gaine  me, 
I  shall  be  judg'd  his  Love  and  so  be  shamed; 
We  see  the  faire  condemn'd  that  never  gamed. 

And  if  I  yeeld,  'tis  honourable  shame. 

If  not,  I  live  disgrac'd,  yet  thought  the  same. 

2  Watson  makes  this  comment  on  his  poem  or  passion  on  Time 
(No.  Ixxvii.)  :  'The  chiefe  contentcs  of  this  Passion  are  taken  out  of 
Seraphine  \i.e.  Seralino],  Sonnet  132: 

Col  tempo  passa  gli  anni,  i  mesi,  e  I'hore, 
Col  tempo  le  richeze,  imperio.  e  regno, 
Col  tempo  fama,  honor,  fortezza,  e  ingegno. 
Col  tempo  giouentCi,  con  belta  more,  &c.' 

Watson  adds  that  he  has  inverted  Serafmo's  order  for  '  rimes 
sake,'  or  'upon  some  other  more  allowable  consideration.'  Shake- 
speare was  also  doubtless  acquainted  with  Giles  Fletcher's  similar 
handling  of  the  theme  in  Sonnet  xxviii.  of  his  collection  of  sonnets 
called  I  Ada  (1593). 


78  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

he  dedicated  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  to  him  in  colder 
language  a  year  before.-  'The  love  I  dedicate  to 
your  lordship,'  Shakespeare  wrote  in  the  opening 
pages  of  '  Lucrcce,'  '  is  without  end,  whereof  this  pam- 
phlet without  beginning  is  but  a  superfluous  moiety. 
.  .  .  What  I  have  done  is  yours ;  what  I  have  to  do 
is  yours ;  being  part  in  all  I  have,  devoted  yours.' 

In  these  poems  Shakespeare  made  his  earliest 
appeal  to  the  world  of  readers,  and  the  reading 
Enthusias-  public  welcomed  his  addresses  with  unquali- 
tion'^ofdie  ^^^  cuthusiasm.  The  London  playgoer 
poems.  already  knew  Shakespeare's  name  as  that  of 
a  promising  actor  and  playwright,  but  his  dramatic 
efforts  had  hitherto  been  consigned  in  manuscript, 
as  soon  as  the  theatrical  representation  ceased,  to  the 
coffers  of  their  owner,  the  playhouse  manager.  His 
early  plays  brought  him  at  the  outset  little  repu- 
tation as  a  man  of  letters.  It  was  not  as  the  myriad- 
minded  dramatist,  but  in  the  restricted  role  of  adapter 
for  English  read,ers  of  familiar  Ovidian  fables  that  he 
first  impressed  a  wide  circle  of  his  contemporaries  with 
the  fact  of  his  mighty  genius,  ^i  The  perfect  sweetness 
of  the  verse,  and  the  poetical  imagery  in  '  Venus  and 
Adonis  '  and  '  Lucrece  '  practically  silenced  censure 
of  the  licentious  treatment  of  the  themes  on  the  part 
of  the  seriously  minded.  Critics  vied  with  each 
other  in  the  exuberance  of  the  eulogies  in  which 
they  proclaimed  that  the  fortunate  author  had  gained 
a  place  in  permanence  on  the  summit  of  Parnassus. 
'  Lucrece,'  wrote  Michael  Drayton  in  his  '  Legend  of 
Matilda '  (i  594),  was '  revived  to  live  another  age.'    In 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO   THE   READING   PUBLIC  79 

1595  William  Gierke  in  his  '  Polimanteia '  gave  'all 
praise '  to  *  sweet  Shakespeare '  for  his  '  Lucrecia.' 
John  Weever,  in  a  sonnet  addressed  to  '  honey-tongued 
Shakespeare'  in  his  '  Epigramms  '  (1595),  eulogised 
the  two  poems  as  an  unmatchable  achievement,  al- 
though he  mentioned  the  plays  '  Romeo '  and  '  Richard ' 
and  'more  whose  names  I  know  not'  Richard Carew 
at  the  same  time  classed  him  with  Marlowe  as  deserv- 
ing the  praises  of  an  English  Catullus.^  Printers  and 
publishers  of  the  poems  strained  their  resources  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  eager  purchasers.  No  fewer 
than  seven  editions  of  '  Venus  '  appeared  between 
1 594  and  1 602  ;  an  eighth  followed  in  1 6 1 7.  '  Lucrece ' 
achieved  a  fifth  edition  in  the  year  of  Shakespeare's 
death. 

There  is  a  likelihood,  too,  that  Spenser,  the  greatest 
of  Shakespeare'spoeticcontemporaries,  was  first  drawn 
Shake-  ^^  ^^^  poems  into  the  ranks  of  Shakespeare's 
speare  and  admirers.  It  is  hardly  doubtful  that  Spenser 
penser.  described  Shakespeare  in  *  Colin  Clouts 
come  home  againe '  (completed  in  1594),  under  the 
name  of  'Action,' — a  familiar  Greek  proper  name 
derived  from  'Aero'?,  an  eagle  : 

And  there,  though  last  not  least  is  Action  ; 

A  gentler  shepheard  may  no  where  be  found, 
Whose  muse,  full  of  high  thought's  invention, 

Doth,  like  himselfe,  heroically  sound. 

The  last  line  seems  to  allude  to  Shakespeare's  sur- 
name.     We   may  assume  that  the  admiration  was 

1  '  Excellencie  of  the   English   Tongue '  in  Camden's  Eemaines, 
P-  4.V 


8o  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

mutual.  At  any  rate  Shakespeare  acknowledged 
acquaintance  with  Spenser's  work  in  a  plain  reference 
to  his  'Teares  of  the  Muses'  (1591)  in  'Midsummer 
Night's  Dream  '  (v.  i.  52-3). 

The  thrice  three  Muses,  mourning  for  the  death 
Of  learning,  late  deceased  in  beggary, 

is  stated  to  be  the  theme  of  one  of  the  dramatic 
entertainments  wherewith  it  is  proposed  to  celebrate 
Theseus's  marriage.  In  Spenser's  '  Teares  of  the 
Muses '  each  of  the  Nine  laments  in  turn  her  declin- 
ing influence  on  the  literary  and  dramatic  effort  of 
the  age.  Theseus  dismisses  the  suggestion  with  the 
not  inappropriate  comment : 

That  is  some  satire  keen  and  critical, 
Not  sorting  with  a  nuptial  ceremony. 

But  there  is  no  ground  for  assuming  that  Spenser  in 
the  same  poem  referred  figuratively  to  Shakespeare 
when  he  made  Thalia  deplore  the  recent  death  of 
'  our  pleasant  Willy.'  ^  The  name  Willy  was  fre- 
quently used  in  contemporary  literature  as  a  term  of 
familiarity  without  relation  to  the  baptismal  name  of 
the  person  referred  to.     Sir  Philip  Sidney  was  ad- 

1  All  these  and  all  that  els  the  Comick  Stage, 
With  seasoned  wit  and  goodly  pleasance  graced. 
By  which  man's  life  in  his  likest  image 
Was  limned  forth,  are  wholly  now  defaced  .  .  . 
And  he,  the  man  whom  Nature  selfe  had  made 
To  mock  her  selfe  and  Truth  to  imitate. 
With  kindly  counter  under  mimick  shade 
Our  pleasant  Willy,  ah  !  is  dead  of  late; 
With  whom  all  joy  and  jolly  merriment 
Is  also  deaded  or  in  dolour  drent.  —  (11.  198-210.) 


FIRST  APPEAL  TO   THE   READING   PUBLIC  8 1 

dressed  as  '  Willy '  by  some  of  his  elegists.  A  comic 
actor,  '  dead  of  late '  in  a  literal  sense,  was  clearly 
intended  by  Spenser,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  dispute 
the  view  of  an  early  seventeenth-century  commentator 
that  Spenser  was  paying  a  tribute  to  the  loss  English 
comedy  had  lately  sustained  by  the  death  of  the 
comedian,  Richard  Tarleton.^  Similarly  the  'gentle 
spirit '  who  is  described  by  Spenser  in  a  later  stanza 
as  sitting  '  in  idle  cell '  rather  than  turn  his  pen  to 
base  uses  cannot  be  reasonably  identified  with  Shake- 
speare.^ 

Meanwhile  Shakespeare  was  gaining  personal 
esteem  outside  the  circles  of  actors  and  men  of 
letters.  His  genius  and  '  civil  demeanour  '  of  which 
Chettle  wrote  arrested  the  notice  not  only  of  South- 
ampton's but  of  other  noble  patrons  of  literature 
and  the  drama.  His  summons  to  act  at  Court  with 
the  most  famous  actors  of  the  day  at  the  Christmas 
Patrons  at  of  1594  was  possibly  due  in  part  to  personal 
court.  interest     in     himself.       Elizabeth     quickly 

showed  him  special  favour.  Until  the  end  of  her 
reign  his  plays  were  repeatedly  acted  in  her  presence. 
The  revised  version  of  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  was 
given  at  Whitehall  at  Christmas   1597,  and  tradition 

1  A  note  to  this  effect,  in  a  genuine  early  seventeenth-century  hand, 
was  discovered  by  HalHwell-Phillipps  in  a  copy  of  the  161 1  edition  of 
Spenser's  Works  (cf.  Outlines,  ii.  394-5). 

'  But  that  same  gentle  spirit,  from  whose  pen 
Large  streams  of  honnie  and  sweete  nectar  flowe. 
Scorning  the  boldnes  of  such  base-borne  men 
Which  dare  their  follies  forth  so  rashlie  throwe. 
Doth  rather  choose  to  sit  in  idle  cell 
Than  so  himselfe  to  mockerie  to  sell.  —  (11.  217-22.) 
G 


82  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

credits  the  Queen  with  unconcealed  enthusiasm  for 
Falstaff,  who  came  into  being  a  little  later.  Under 
Elizabeth's  successor  he  greatly  strengthened  his 
hold  on  royal  favour,  but  Ben  Jonson  claimed  that 
the  Queen's  appreciation  equalled  that  of  James  I. 

Those  flights  upon  the  banks  of  Thames, 
That  so  did  take  Eliza  and  our  James,  — 

of  which  Jonson  wrote  in  his  elegy  on  Shakespeare 
—  included  many  representations  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  by  himself  and  his  fellow-actors  at  the  palaces 
of  Whitehall,  Richmond,  or  Greenwich  during  the 
last  decade  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 


THE   SONNETS   AND  THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY       83 


VII 

THE  SONNETS  AND  THEIR  LITERARY  HISTORY 

It  was  doubtless  to  Shakespeare's  personal  rela- 
tions with  men  and  women  of  the  Court  that  his 
sonnets  owe  their  existence.  In  Italy  and  France  the 
practice  of  writing  and  circulating  series  of  sonnets  in- 
The  vogue  scribcd  to  great  men  and  women  flourished 
zabethan"  Continuously  throughout  the  sixteenth  cen- 
sonnet.  tury.  In  England,  until  the  last  decade  of 
that  century,  the  vogue  was  intermittent.  Wyatt  and 
Surrey  inaugurated  sonnetteering  in  the  English 
language  under  Henry  VIII,  and  Thomas  Watson 
devoted  much  energy  to  the  pursuit  when  Shake- 
speare was  a  boy.  But  it  was  not  until  1591,  when 
Sir  Philip  Sidney's  collection  of  sonnets  entitled 
'  Astrophel  and  Stella  '  was  first  published,  that  the 
sonnet  enjoyed  in  England  any  conspicuous  or  con- 
tinuous favour.  For  the  half-dozen  years  following 
the  appearance  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  volume  the 
writing  of  sonnets,  both  singly  and  in  connected  se- 
quences, engaged  more  literary  activity  in  this  country 
than  it  engaged  at  any  period   here  or   elsewhere.^ 

1  Section  ix.  of  the  Appendix  to  this  volume  gives  a  sketch  of  each 
of  the  numerous  collections  of  sonnets  which  bore  witness  to  the  un- 
exampled vogue  of  the  Elizabethan  sonnet  between  1591  and  1597. 


84  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Men  and  women  of  the  cultivated  Elizabethan  nobility 
encouraged  poets  to  celebrate  in  single  sonnets  their 
virtues  and  graces,  and  under  the  same  patronage 
there  were  produced  multitudes  of  sonnet-sequences 
which  more  or  less  fancifully  narrated,  after  the 
manner  of  Petrarch  and  his  successors,  the  pleasures 
and  pains  of  love.  Between  1591  and  1597  no 
aspirant  to  poetic  fame  in  the  country  failed  to  seek 
a  patron's  ears  by  a  trial  of  skill  on  the  popular 
poetic  instrument,  and  Shakespeare,  who  habitually 
kept  abreast  of  the  currents  of  contemporary  literary 
taste,  applied  himself  to  sonnetteering  with  all  the 
force  of  his  poetic  genius  when  the  fashion  was  at  its 
height. 

Shakespeare  had  lightly  experimented  with  the 
sonnet  from  the  outset  of  his  literary  career.  Three 
Shake-  well-turncd  examples  figure  in  '  Love's 
fim^ex^eri-  Labour's  Lost,'  probably  his  earliest  play ; 
merits.  two  of  the  choruscs  in  '  Romeo  and  Juliet ' 
are  couched  in  the  sonnet  form ;  and  a  letter  of  the 
heroine  Helen,  in  '  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,'  which 
bears  traces  of  very  early  composition,  takes  the  same 
shape.  It  has,  too,  been  argued  ingeniously,  if  not 
convincingly,  that  he  was  author  of  the  somewhat 
clumsy  sonnet,  '  Phaeton  to  his  friend  Florio,'  which 
prefaced  in  1591  Florio's  'Second  Frutes,'  a  series 
of  Italian-English  dialogues  for  students.^ 

1  Minto,  Characteristics  of  English  Poetry,  1885,  pp.  37 1,  382. 
The  sonnet,  headed  '  Phaeton  to  his  friend  Florio,'  runs : 

Sweet  friend  whose  name  agrees  with  thy  increase, 
How  fit  arrival  art  thou  of  the  Spring  ! 
For  when  each  branch  hath  left  his  flourishing, 
And  green-locked  Summer's  shady  pleasure  cease  : 


THE   SONNETS   AND   THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY       85 

But  these  were  sporadic  efforts.  It  was  not  till 
the  spring  of  1593,  after  Shakespeare  had  secured 
a  nobleman's  patronage  for  his  earliest  publication, 
'Venus  and  Adonis,'  that  he  became  a  sonnetteer 
on  an  extended  scale.  Of  the  hundred  and  fifty-four 
sonnets  that  survive  outside  his  plays,  the  greater 
Majority  of  number  were  in  all  likelihood  composed 
speare's  between  that  date  and  the  autumn  of  1594, 
sonnets        during    his    thirtieth    and    thirty-first  years. 

composed  .,^  .,  ,. 

in  1594.  His  occasional  reierence  m  the  sonnets  to  his 
growing  age  was  a  conventional  device  —  traceable  to 
Petrarch  —  of  all  sonnetteers  of  the  day,  and  admits  of 

She  makes  the  Winter's  storms  repose  in  peace, 
And  spends  her  franchise  on  each  living  thing: 
The  daisies  sprout,  the  little  birds  do  sing, 
Herbs,  gums,  and  plants  do  vaunt  of  their  release. 

So  when  that  all  our  English  Wits  lay  dead, 
(Except  the  laurel  that  is  ever  green) 
Thou  with  thy  Fruit  our  barrenness  o'erspread. 
And  set  thy  flowery  pleasance  to  be  seen. 

Such  fruits,  such  flow'rets  of  morality. 
Were  ne'er  before  brought  out  of  Italy. 

Cf.  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  xcviii.  beginning : 

Wlien  proud-pied  April,  dress'd  in  all  his  trim 
Hath  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  everything. 

But  like  descriptions  of  Spring  and  Summer  formed  a  topic  that 
was  common  to  all  the  sonnets  of  the  period.  Much  has  been  written 
of  Shakespeare's  alleged  acquaintance  with  Florio.  Farmer  and 
Warburton  argue  that  Shakespeare  ridiculed  Florio  in  Holofernes  in 
Love's  Labour's  Lost.  They  chiefly  rely  on  Florio's  bombastic  prefaces 
to  his  Worlde  of  Wordes  and  his  translation  of  Montaigne's  Essays 
(1603).  There  is  nothing  there  to  justify  the  suggestion.  Florio 
writes  more  in  the  vein  of  Armado  than  of  Holofernes,  and,  beyond 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  teacher  of  languages  to  noblemen,  he  bears  no 
resemblance  to  Holofernes,  a  village  schoolmaster.  Shakespeare 
doubtless  knew  Florio  as  Southampton's  protege,  and  read  his  fine 
translation  of  Montaigne's  Essays  with  delight.  He  quotes  from  it  in 
The  Tempest :  see  p.  253. 


86  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

no  literal  interpretation.^  In  matter  and  in  manner 
the  bulk  of  the  poems  suggest  that  they  came  from 
the  pen  of  a  man  not  much  more  than  thirty.  Doubt- 
less he  renewed  his  sonnetteering  efforts  occasionally 

^  Shakespeare  writes  in  his  Sonnets : 

My  glass  shall  not  persuade  me  I  am  old  (xxii.  i). 

But  when  my  glass  shows  me  myself  indeed, 

Beated  and  chopp'd  with  tann'd  antiquity  (Ixii.  g-io). 

That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  behold 

When  yellow  leaves,  or  none,  or  few  do  hang  (Ixxiii.  1-2). 

My  days  are  past  the  best  (cxxxviii.  6). 

Daniel  in  Delia  (xxiii.)  in  1591,  when  twenty-nine  years  old,  ex- 
claimed : 

My  years  draw  on  my  everlasting  night, 

.     .     .     My  days  are  done. 

Richard  Barnfield,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  bade  the  boy  Ganymede,  to 
whom  he  addressed  his  Affectionate  Shepherd  and  a  sequence  of  sonnets 
in  1594  (ed.  Arber,  p.  23)  : 

Behold  my  gray  head,  full  of  silver  hairs. 
My  wrinkled  skin,  deep  furrows  in  my  face. 

Similarly  Drayton  in  a  sonnet  {Idea,  xiv.)  published  in  1594,  when  he 
was  barely  thirty-one,  wrote  : 

Looking  into  the  glass  of  my  youth's  miseries, 

I  see  the  ugly  face  of  my  deformed  cares 

With  withered  brows  all  wrinkled  with  despairs; 

and  a  little  later  (No.  xliii.  of  the  1599  edition)  he  repeated  how 

Age  rules  my  lines  with  wrinkles  in  my  face. 

All  these  lines  are  echoes  of  Petrarch,  and  Shakespeare  and  Drayton 
followed  the  Italian  master's  words  more  closely  than  their  contempora- 
ries. Cf.  Petrarch's  Sonnet  cxliii.  (to  Laura  alive),  or  Sonnet  Ixxxi.  (to 
Laura  after  death)  ;  the  latter  begins : 

Dicemi  spesso  il  mio  fidato  speglio, 
L"  animo  stanco  e  la  cangiata  scorza 
E  la  scemata  mia  destrezza  e  forza: 
Non  ti  nasconder  piii ;  tu  se'  pur  veglio. 

{i.e.  '  My  faithful  glass  often  shows  me  my  weary  spirit  and  my 
wrinkled  skin,  and  my  decaying  wit  and  strength :  it  cannot  longer  be 
hidden  from  you,  you  are  old.') 


THE  SONNETS  AND  THEIR  LITERARY   HISTORY       S;^ 

and  at  irregular  intervals  during  the  nine  years  which 
elapsed  between  1594  and  the  accession  of  James  I 
in  1603.  But  to  very  few  of  the  extant  examples  can 
a  date  later  than  1594  be  allotted  with  confidence. 
Sonnet  cvii.,  in  which  plain  reference  is  made  to 
Queen  Elizabeth's  death,  may  be  fairly  regarded  as  a 
belated  and  a  final  act  of  homage  on  Shakespeare's 
part  to  the  importunate  vogue  of  the  Elizabethan 
sonnet.  All  the  evidence,  whether  internal  or  ex- 
ternal, points  to  the  conclusion  that  the  sonnet  ex- 
hausted such  fascination  as  it  exerted  on  Shakespeare 
before  his  dramatic  genius  attained  its  full  height. 

In  literary  value  Shakespeare's  sonnets  are  notably 
unequal.  Many  reach  levels  of  lyric  melody  and  medi- 
Their  tativc  energy  that  are  hardly  to  be  matched 

literary  elscwhcre  in  poetry.  The  best  examples 
^^"^"  are    charged  with   the  mellowed  sweetness 

of  rhythm  and  metre,  the  depth  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing, the  vividness  of  imagery  and  the  stimulating  fer- 
vour of  expression  which  are  the  finest  proofs  of  poetic 
power.  On  the  other  hand,  many  sinK^TmoSrtnto 
inanity  beneath  the  burden  of  quibbles  and  conceits. 
In  both  their  excellences  and  their  defects  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  betray  near  kinship  to  his  early 
dramatic  work,  in  which  passages  of  the  highest 
poetic  temper  at  times  alternate  with  unimpressive 
displays  of  verbal  jugglery.  In  phraseology  the 
sonnets  often  closely  resemble  such  early  dramatic 
efforts  as  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost '  and  '  Romeo  and 
Juliet.'  There  is  far  more  concentration  in  the  sonnets 
than  in  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  or  in  '  Lucrece,'  although 


88  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

occasional  utterances  of  Shakespeare's  Roman  heroine 
show  traces  of  the  intensity  that  characterises  the 
best  of  them.  The  superior  and  more  evenly  sus- 
tained energy  of  the  sonnets  is  to  be  attributed,  not 
to  the  accession  of  power  that  comes  with  increase  of 
years,  but  to  the  innate  principles  of  the  poetic  form, 
and  to  metrical  exigences,  which  impelled  the  sonnet- 
teer  to  aim  at  a  uniform  condensation  of  thought  and 
Janguage. 

In  accordance  with  a  custom  that  was  not  un- 
Circuiation  common,  Shakespeare  did  not  publish  his 
in  manu-  souncts  ;  he  circulated  them  in  manuscript.^ 
scrip .  g^^^  their  reputation  grew,   and  public  in- 

terest was  aroused  in  them  in  spite  of  his  unreadi- 

^The  Sonnets  of  Sidney',  Watson,  Daniel,  and  Constable  long  cir- 
culated in  manuscript,  and  suffered  much  the  same  fate  as  Shakespeare's 
at  the  hands  of  piratical  publishers.  After  circulating  many  years  in 
manuscript,  Sidney's  Sonnets  were  published  in  1591  by  an  irresponsible 
trader,  Thomas  Newman,  who  in  his  self-advertising  dedication  wrote  of 
the  collection  that  it  had  been  widely  '  spread  abroad  in  written  copies,' 
and  had  'gathered  much  corruption  by  ill  writers'  [z.f.  copyists]. 
Constable  produced  in  1592  a  collection  of  twenty  sonnets  in  a  volume 
which  he  entitled  '  Diana.'  This  was  an  authorised  publication.  But 
in  1594  a  printer  and  a  publisher,  without  Constable's  knowledge  or 
sanction,  reprinted  these  sonnets  and  scattered  them  through  a  volume 
of  nearly  eighty  miscellaneous  sonnets  by  Sidney  and  many  other  hands; 
the  adventurous  publishers  bestowed  on  their  medley  the  title  of 'Diana,' 
which  Constable  had  distinctively  attached  to  his  own  collection.  Daniel 
suffered  in  much  the  same  way.  See  Appendix  ix.  for  further  notes  on 
the  subject.  Proofs  of  the  commonness  of  the  habit  of  circulating  litera- 
ture in  manuscript  abound.  Fulke  Greville,  writing  to  Sidney's  father-in- 
law.  Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  in  1587,  expressed  regret  that  uncorrected 
manuscript  copies  of  the  then  unprinted  Arcadia  were  '  so  common.' 
In  1591  Gabriel  Cawood,  the  publisher  of  Robert  Southwell's  Mary 
Magdalen^ s  Funeral  Tears,  wrote  that  manuscript  copies  of  the  work 
had  long  flown  about  '  fast  and  false.'      Nash,  in  the   preface  to  his 


THE   SONNETS   AND  THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY       89 

ness  to  give  them  publicity.  A  line  from  one  of 
them : 

Lilies  that  fester  smell  far  worse  than  weeds  (xciv.  14), ^ 

was  quoted  in  the  play  of  'Edward  III,'  which  was 
probably  written  before  1595.  Meres,  writing  in  1598, 
enthusiastically  commends  Shakespeare's  '  sugred  ^ 
sonnets  among  his  private  friends,'  and  mentions 
them  in  close  conjunction  with  his  two  narrative 
poems.  William  Jaggard  piratically  inserted  in  1599 
two  of  the  most  mature  of  the  series  (Nos.  cxxxviii. 
and  cxliv.)  in  his  'Passionate  Pilgrim.' 

At  length,  in  1609,  the  sonnets  were  surreptitiously 
sent  to  press.  Thomas  Thorpe,  the  moving  spirit  in 
Their  the  design  of  their  publication,  was  a  camp- 

pubUcation  follower  of  the  regular  publishing  army, 
in  1609.  He  was  professionally  engaged  in  procur- 
ing for  publication  literary  works  which  had  been 
widely  disseminated  in  written  copies  and  had  thus 
passed  beyond  their  authors'  control;  for  the  law  then 
recognised  no  natural  right  in  an  author  to  the  crea- 
tions of  his  brain,  and  the  full  owner  of  a  manuscript 
copy  of  any  literary  composition  was  entitled  to 
reproduce  it,  or  to  treat  it  as  he  pleased,   without 

Terrors  of  the  Alight,  1594,  described  how  a  copy  of  that  essay,  which 
a  friend  had  '  wrested  '  from  him,  had  '  progressed  [without  his  author- 
ity] from  one  scrivener's  shop  to  another,  and  at  length  grew  so  com- 
mon that  it  was  ready  to  be  hung  out  for  one  of  their  figures  \i.e.  shop- 
signs],  like  a  pair  of  indentures.' 

1  Cf.  Sonnet  Ixix.  12: 

To  thy  fair  flower  add  the  rank  smell  of  weeds. 

2  For  other  instances  of  the  application  of  this  epithet  to  Shake- 
speare's work,  see  p.  179,  note  i. 


90  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

reference  to  the  author's  wishes.  Thorpe's  career  as 
a  procurer  of  neglected  '  copy  '  had  begun  well.  He 
made,  in  1600,  his  earliest  hit  by  bringing  to  light 
Marlowe's  translation  of  the  '  First  Book  of  Lucan.' 
On  May  20,  1609,  he  obtained  a  licence  for  the  publi- 
cation of  'Shakespeare's  Sonnets,'  and  this  tradesman- 
like form  of  title  figured  not  only  on  the  '  Stationers' 
Company's  Registers,'  but  on  the  title-page.  Thorpe 
employed  George  Eld  to  print  the  manuscript,  and 
two  booksellers,  William  Aspley  and  John  Wright,  to 
distribute  it  to  the  public.  On  half  the  edition 
Aspley's  name  figured  as  that  of  the  seller,  and  on  the 
other  half  that  of  Wright.  The  book  was  issued  in 
June,^  and  the  owner  of  the  'copy'  left  the  public 
under  no  misapprehension  as  to  his  share  in  the  pro- 
duction by  printing  above  his  initials  a  dedicatory 
preface  from  his  own  pen.  The  appearance  in  a 
book  of  a  dedication  from  the  publisher's  (instead  of 
from  the  author's)  pen  was,  unless  the  substitution 
was  specifically  accounted  for  on  other  grounds,  an 
accepted  sign  that  the  author  had  no  hand  in  the 
publication.  Except  in  the  case  of  his  two  narrative 
poems,  which  were  published  in  1593  and  1594  respec- 
tively, Shakespeare  made  no  effort  to  publish  any  of 
his  works,  and  uncomplainingly  submitted  to  the 
wholesale  piracies  of  his  plays  and  the  ascription  to 
him  of  books  by  other  hands.  Such  practices  were 
'encouraged  by  his  passive  indifference  and  the  con- 
temporary condition  of  the  law   of  copyright.     He 

1  The  actor  Alleyii  paid  fivepence  for  a  copy  in  tliat  month  (cf. 
Warner's  Dulwich  A/SS.,  p.  92). 


THE   SONNETS   AND   THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY       9 1 

cannot  be  credited  with  any  responsibility  for  the 
publication  of  Thorpe's  collection  of  his  sonnets  in 
1609.  With  characteristic  insolence  Thorpe  took  the 
added  liberty  of  appending  a  previously  unprinted 
poem  of  forty-nine  seven-line  stanzas  (the  metre  of 
'A  Lover's  '  Lucrccc ' )  entitled  'A  Lover's  Complaint,' 
Complaint;  jj^  ^hJch  a  girl  laments  her  betrayal  by  a 
deceitful  youth.  The  poem,  in  a  gentle  Spenserian 
vein,  has  no  connection  with  the  'Sonnets.'  If,  as 
is  possible,  it  be  by  Shakespeare,  it  must  have  been 
written  in  very  early  days. 

A  misunderstanding  respecting  Thorpe's  preface 
and  his  part  in  the  publication  has  led  many  critics 
into  a  serious  misinterpretation  of  Shakespeare's 
poems. 1  Thorpe's  dedication  was  couched  in  the 
bombastic  language  which  was  habitual  to  him. 
Thomas  He  advertised  Shakespeare  as  *  our  ever- 
and^Mr  living  poct.'  As  the  chief  promoter  of 
w.  H.'  the  undertaking,  he  called  himself  '  the 
well-wishing  adventurer  in  setting  forth,'  and  in  reso- 
nant phrase  designated  as  the  patron  of  the  venture 

^  The  chief  editions  of  the  sonnets  that  have  appeared,  with  critical 
apparatus,  of  late  years  are  those  of  Professor  Dowden  (1875,  reissued 
1896),  Mr.  Thomas  Tyler  (1890),  and  Mr.  George  Wyndham,  M.P. 
(1898).  Mr.  Gerald  Massey's  Secret  Drama  of  Shakespeare' s  Sonnets 
—  the  text  of  the  poems  with  a  full  discussion  —  appeared  in  a  second 
revised  edition  in  1888.  I  regret  to  find  myself  in  more  or  less  com- 
plete disagreement  with  all  these  writers,  although  I  am  at  one  with 
Mr.  Massey  in  identifying  the  young  man  to  whom  many  of  the  sonnets 
were  addressed  with  the  Earl  of  Southampton.  A  short  bibliography 
of  the  works  advocating  the  theory  that  the  sonnets  were  addressed 
to  William,  third  Earl  of  Pembroke,  is  given  in  Appendix  vi.  '  Mr. 
Wiljiam  Herbert,'  note  i. 


92  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

a  partner  in  the  speculation,  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  In  the 
conventional  dedicatory  formula  of  the  day  he  wished 
'Mr.  W.  H.'  'all  happiness'  and  'eternity,'  such 
eternity  as  Shakespeare  in  the  text  of  the  sonnets 
conventionally  foretold  for  his  own  verse.  When 
Thorpe  was  organising  the  issue  of  Marlowe's  '  First 
Book  of  Lucan '  in  1600,  he  sought  the  patronage  of 
Edward  Blount,  a  friend  in  the  trade.  'W.  H.'  was 
doubtless  in  a  like  position.  He  is  best  identified  with 
a  stationer's  assistant,  William  Hall,  who  was  profes- 
sionally engaged,  like  Thorpe,  in  procuring  'copy.'  In 
1606  '  W.  H.'  won  a  conspicuous  success  in  that  direc- 
tion, and  conducted  his  operations  under  cover  of  the 
familiar  initials.  In  that  year  '  W.  H.'  announced  that 
he  had  procured  a  neglected  manuscript  poem  — '  A 
Foure-fold  Meditation  '  — by  the  Jesuit  Robert  South- 
well who  had  been  executed  in  1595,  and  he  published 
it  with  a  dedication  (signed  '  W.  H.')  vaunting  his  good 
fortune  in  meeting  with  such  treasure-trove.  When 
Thorpe  dubbed  '  Mr.  W.  H.,' with  characteristic  mag- 
niloquence, 'the  onlie  begetter  [i.e.  obtainer  or  pro- 
curer] of  these  ensuing  sonnets,'  he  merely  indicated 
that  that  personage  was  the  first  of  the  pirate-publisher 
fraternity  to  procure  a  manuscript  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  and  recommend  its  surreptitious  issue.  In 
accordance  with  custom,  Thorpe  gave  Hall's  initials 
only,  because  he  was  an  intimate  associate  who 
was  known  by  those  initials  to  their  common  circle 
of  friends.  Hall  was  not  a  man  of  sufficiently 
wide  public  reputation  to  render  it  probable  that  the 


THE   SONNETS   AND   THEIR   LITERARY    HISTORY       93 

printing    of  his   full   name   would    excite   additional 
interest  in  the  book  or  attract  buyers. 

The  common  assumption  that  Thorpe  in  this  boast- 
ful preface  was  covertly  addressing,  under  the  initials 
'Mr.  W.  H.,'  a  young  nobleman,  to  whom  the  sonnets 
were  originally  addressed  by  Shakespeare,  ignores  the 
elementary  principles  of  publishing  transactions  of 
the  day,  and  especially  of  those  of  the  type  to  which 
Thorpe's  efforts  were  confined.^  There  was  nothing 
mysterious  or  fantastic,  although  from  a  modern  point 
of  view  there  was  much  that  lacked  principle,  in 
Thorpe's  methods  of  business.  His  choice  of  patron 
for  this,  like  all  his  volumes,  was  dictated  solely  by  his 
mercantile  interests.  He  was  under  no  inducement 
and  in  no  position  to  take  into  consideration  the 
affairs  of  Shakespeare's  private  life.  Shakespeare, 
through  all  but  the  earliest  stages  of  his  career, 
belonged  socially  to  a  world  that  was  cut  off  by  im- 

^  It  has  been  wrongly  inferred  that  Shakespeare  asserts  in  Sonnets 
cxxxv.-vi.  and  cxliii.  that  the  young  friend  to  whom  he  addressed  some 
of  the  sonnets  bore  his  own  christian  name  of  Will  (see  for  a  full  examina- 
tion of  these  sonnets  Appendix  viii.).  Further,  it  has  been  fantastically 
suggested  that  the  line  (xx.  7)  describing  the  youth  as  'A  man  in  hue, 
all  hues  in  his  controlling'  {i.e.  a  man  in  colour  or  complexion  whose 
charms  are  so  varied  as  to  appear  to  give  his  countenance  control  of,  or 
enable  it  to  assume,  all  manner  of  fascinating  hues  or  complexions),  and 
other  applications  to  the  youth  of  the  ordinary  word  '  hue,'  imply  that 
his  surname  was  Hughes.  There  is  no  other  pretence  of  argument  for 
the  conclusion,  which  a  few  critics  have  hazarded  in  all  seriousness,  that 
the  friend's  name  was  William  Hughes.  There  was  a  contemporary 
musician  called  William  Hughes,  but  no  known  contemporary  of  the 
name,  either  in  age  or  position  in  life,  bears  any  resemblance  to  the 
young  man  who  is  addressed  by  Shakespeare  in  his  sonnets. 


94  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

passable  barriers  from  that  in  which  Thorpe  pursued 
his  calling.  It  was  wholly  outside  Thorpe's  aims  in 
life  to  seek  to  mystify  his  customers  by  investing  a 
dedication  with  any  cryptic  significance. 

No  peer  of  the  day,  moreover,  bore  a  name  which 
could  be  represented  by  the  initials  '  Mr.  W.  H.' 
Shakespeare  was  never  on  terms  of  intimacy  (although 
the  contrary  has  often  been  recklessly  assumed)  with 
William,  third  Earl  of  Pembroke,  when  a  youth.^ 
But  were  complete  proofs  of  the  acquaintanceship 
forthcoming,  they  would  throw  no  light  on  Thorpe's 
'  Mr.  W.  H.'  The  Earl  of  Pembroke  was,  from  his  birth 
to  the  date  of  his  succession  to  the  earldom  in  1601, 
known  by  the  courtesy  title  of  Lord  Herbert  and  by  no 
other  name,  and  he  could  not  have  been  designated  at 
any  period  of  his  life  by  the  symbols  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  In 
1609  Pembroke  was  a  high  officer  of  state,  and 
numerous  books  were  dedicated  to  him  in  all  the 
splendour  of  his  many  titles.  Star-Chamber  penalties 
would  have  been  exacted  of  any  publisher  or  author 
who  denied  him  in  print  his  titular  distinctions. 
Thorpe  had  occasion  to  dedicate  two  books  to  the 
earl  in  later  years,  and  he  there  showed  not  merely 
that  he  was  fully  acquainted  with  the  compulsory 
etiquette,  but  that  his  sycophantic  temperament  ren- 
dered him  only  eager  to  improve  on  the  conventional 
formulas  of  servility.  Any  further  considerations  of 
Thorpe's  address  to   'Mr.  W.   H.'    belongs    to    the 


1  See   Appendix   vi.,  'Mr.  William    Herbert;   and   Vli.  'Shake- 
speare and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke.' 


THE   SONNETS   AND  THEIR   LITERARY    HISTORY       95 

biographies  of  Thorpe  and  his  friend ;  it  lies  outside 
the  scope  of  Shakespeare's  biography.^ 

Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets '  ignore  the  somewhat 
complex  scheme  of  rhyme  adopted  by  Petrarch, 
The  form  whom  the  Elizabethan  sonnetteers,  like  the 
of  Shake-     pj-gnch  sonnettccrs  of  the  sixteenth  century, 

speare  s  -^ ' 

Sonnets.  rccogniscd  to  be  in  most  respects  their  master. 
Following  the  example  originally  set  by  Surrey  and 
Wyatt,  and  generally  pursued  by  Shakespeare's  con- 
temporaries, his  sonnets  aim  at  far  greater  metrical 
simplicity  than  the  Italian  or  the  French.  They 
consist  of  three  decasyllabic  quatrains  with  a  con- 
cluding couplet,  and  the  quatrains  rhyme  alternately .^ 

1  The  full  results  of  my  researches  into  Thorpe's  history,  his  methods 
of  business,  and  the  significance  of  his  dedicatory  addresses,  of  which 
four  are  extant  besides  that  prefixed  to  the  volume  of  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets  in  1609,  are  given  in  Appendix  v.,  'The  True  History  of 
Thomas  Thorpe  and  "  Mr.  W.  H."  ' 

-  The  form  of  fourteen-line  stanza  adopted  by  Shakespeare  is  in  no 
way  peculiar  to  himself.  It  is  the  type  recognised  by  Elizabethan  writers 
on  metre  as  correct  and  customary  in  England  long  before  he  wrote. 
George  Gascoigne,  in  his  Certayne  Azotes  of  Inst)-uction  concerniug  the 
making  of  Verse  or  Ryine  in  English  (published  in  Gascoigne's  Posies, 
1575),  defined  sonnets  thus  :  '  Fouretene  lynes,  every  lyne  conteyning 
tenne  syllables.  The  first  twelve  to  ryme  in  staves  of  foure  lynes  by 
.cross  metre  and  the  last  two  ryming  togither,  do  conclude  the  whole.' 
In  twenty-one  of  the  108  sonnets  of  which  Sidney's  collection  entitled 
Astrophel  and  Stella  consists,  the  rhymes  are  on  the  foreign  model  and 
the  final  couplet  is  avoided.  But  these  are  exceptional.  As  is  not 
uncommon  in  Elizabethan  sonnet-collections,  one  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  (xcix.)  has  fifteen  lines;  another  (c.x.wi.)  has  only  twelve  lines, 
and  those  in  rhymed  couplets  (cf.  Lodge's  Phillis,  Nos.  viii.  and  xxvi.) ; 
and  a  third  (cxlv.)  is  in  octosyllabics.  But  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
the  second  and  third  of  these  sonnets  rightly  belong  to  Shakespeare's 
collection.  They  were  probably  written  as  independent  lyrics ;  see 
p.  97,  note  I. 


96  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

A  single  sonnet  does  not  always  form  an  indepen- 
dent poem.  As  in  the  French  and  Italian  sonnets 
of  the  period,  and  in  those  of  Spenser,  Sidney,  Daniel, 
and  Drayton,  the  same  train  of  thought  is  at  times 
pursued  continuously  through  two  or  more.  The 
collection  of  Shakespeare's  154  sonnets  thus  presents 
the  appearance  of  an  extended  series  of  independent 
poems,  many  in  a  varying  number  of  fourteen-line 
stanzas.  The  longest  sequence  (i.-xvii.)  numbers 
seventeen  sonnets,  and  in  Thorpe's  edition  opens  the 
volume. 

It  is  unlikely  that  the  order  in  which  the  poems 
were  printed  follows  the  order  in  which  they  were 
Want  of  written.  Fantastic  endeavours  have  been 
continuity,  ^lade  to  dctcct  in  the  original  arrangement 
of  the  poems  a  closely  connected  narrative,  but  the 
thread  is  on  any  showing  constantly  interrupted.' 
The  two  It  is  usual  to  divide  the  sonnets  into  two 
'groups.'  groups,  and  to  represent  that  all  those 
numbered  i.-cxxvi.  by  Thorpe  were  addressed  to  a 
young  man,  and  all  those  numbered  cxxvii.-cliv.  were 
addressed  to    a   woman.      This   division    cannot   be 

^  If  the  critical  ingenuity  which  has  detected  a  continuous  thread  of 
narrative  in  the  order  that  Thorpe  printed  Shakespeare's  sonnets  were 
appHed  to  the  booksellers'  miscellany  of  sonnets  called  Diana  (1594), 
that  volume,  which  rakes  together  sonnets  on  all  kinds  of  amorous 
subjects  from  all  quarters  and  numbers  them  consecutively,  could  be 
made  to  reveal  the  sequence  of  an  individual  lover's  moods  quite  as 
readily,  and,  if  no  external  evidence  were  admitted,  quite  as  convin- 
cingly as  Thorpe's  collection  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  Almost  all 
Elizabethan  sonnets  are  not  merely  in  the  like  metre,  but  are  pitched 
in  what  sounds  superficially  to  be  the  same  key  of  pleading  or  yearning. 
Thus  almost  every  collection  gives  at  a  first  perusal  a  specious  and 
delusive  impression  of  homogeneity. 


THE   SONNETS   AND  THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY        97 

literally  justified.  In  the  first  group  some  eighty  of 
the  sonnets  can  be  proved  to  be  addressed  to  k  man 
by  the  use  of  the  masculine  pronoun  or  some  other 
unequivocal  sign  ;  but  among  the  remaining  forty 
there  is  no  clear  indication  of  the  kind.  Many  of 
these  forty  are  meditative  soliloquies  which  address  no 
person  at  all  (cf.  cv.  cxvi.  cxix.  cxxi.).  A  few  in- 
voke abstractions  like  Death  (Ixvi.)  or  Time  (cxxiii.), 
or  'benefit  of  ill'  (cxix.).  The  twelve-lined  poem 
(cxxvi.),  the  last  of  the  first  'group,'  does  little  more 
than  sound  a  variation  on  the  conventional  poetic  in- 
vocations of  Cupid  or  Love  personified  as  a  boy.^  And 
there  is  no  valid  objection  to  the  assumption  that  the 
poet  inscribed  the  rest  of  these  forty  sonnets  to  a 
woman  (cf.  xxi.  xlvi.  xlvii.).  Similarly,  the  sonnets  in 
the  second  'group'  (cxxvii.-cliv.)  have  no  uniform 
superscription.  Six  invoke  no  person  at  all.  No. 
cxxviii.  is  an  overstrained  compliment  on  a  lady  play- 
ing on  the  virginals.  No.  cxxix.  is  a  metaphysical 
disquisition  on  lust.     No.   cxlv.  is  a  playful  lyric  in 

1  Shakespeare  merely  warns  his  '  lovely  boy  '  that,  though  he  be 
now  the  '  minion  '  of  Nature's  '  pleasure,'  he  will  not  succeed  in  defying 
Time's  inexorable  law.  Sidney  addresses  in  a  lighter  vein  Cupid  — 
'  blind-hitting  boy,'  he  calls  him  —  in  his  Astrophel  (No.  xlvi.).  Cupid 
is  similarly  invoked  in  three  of  Drayton's  sonnets  (No.  xxvi.  in  the 
edition  of  1594,  and  Nos.  xxxiii.  and  xxxiv.  in  that  of  1605),  and 
in  six  in  Fulke  Greville's  collection  entitled  Calica  (cf.  l.xxxiv.,  begin- 
ning 'Farewell,  sweet  boy,  complain  not  of  my  truth'  ).  Lyly  in  his 
Sapho  andPhao,  1584,  and  in  his  Mother  Bomhie,  1598,  has  songs  of  like 
temper  addressed  in  the  one  case  to  '  O  Cruel  love  !  '  and  in  the  other 
to  '  O  Cupid  !  monarch  over  kings.'  A  similar  theme  to  that  of  Shake- 
speare's Sonnet  cxxvi.  is  treated  by  John  Ford  in  the  song,  '  Love  is 
ever  dying,'  in  his  tragedy  of  the  Broken  Heart,  1633. 
H 


98  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

octosyllabics,  like  Ly  ly 's  song  of '  Cupid  and  Campaspe, 
and  its  tone  has  close  affinity  to  that  and  other  of 
Lyly's  songs.     No.  cxlvi.  invokes  the  soul  of  man. 
Nos.  cliii.  and  cliv.  soliloquise  on  an  ancient  Greek 
apologue  on  the  force  of  Cupid's  fire.^ 

The  choice  and  succession  of  topics  in  each 
'  group  '  give  to  neither  genuine  cohesion.  In  the 
first  '  group  '  the  long  opening  sequence  (i.-xvii.) 
forms  the  poet's  appeal  to  a  young  man  to  marry 
so  that  his  youth  and  beauty  may  survive  in  children. 
There  is  almost  a  contradiction  in  terms  between 
the  poet's  handling  of  that  topic  and  his  emphatic 
boast  in  the  two  following  sonnets  (xviii.-xix.)  that 
his  verse  alone  is  fully  equal  to  the  task  of  immor- 
Main  talising  his  friend's  youth  and  accomplish- 

the  fim  ments.  The  same  asseveration  is  repeated 
'group.'  in  many  later  sonnets  (cf.  Iv.  Ix.  Ixiii. 
Ixxiv.  Ixxxi.  ci.  cvii.).  These  alternate  with  conven- 
tional adulation  of  the  beauty  of  the  object  of  the 
poet's  affections  (cf.  xxi.  liii.  Ixviii.)  and  descriptions 
of  the  effects  of  absence  in  intensifying  devotion  (cf. 
xlviii.  1.  cxiii.).  There  are  many  reflections  on  the 
nocturnal  torments  of  a  lover  (cf.  xxvii.  xxviii.' 
xliii.  1.  Ixi.)  and  on  his  blindness  to  the  beauty  of 
spring  or  summer  when  he  is  separated  from  his  love 
(cf.  xcvii.  xcviii.).  At  times  a  youth  is  rebuked  for 
sensual  indulgences ;  he  has  sought  and  won  the 
favour  of  the  poet's  mistress  in  the  poet's  absence, 
but  the  poet  is  forgiving  (xxxii.-xxxv.  xl.-xlii.  Ixix. 
xcv.-xcvi.).     In   Sonnet    Ixx.  the   young  man  whom 

^  See  p.  113,  note  2. 


THE   SONNETS   AND   THEIR   LITERARY    HISToRV       99 

the  poet  addresses  is  credited  with  a  different  disposi- 
tion and  experience  : 

And  thou  present'st  a  pure  unstained  prime. 
Thou  hast  pass'd  by  the  ambush  of  young  days, 
Either  not  assail'd,  or  victor  being  charg'd  ! 

At  times  melancholy  overwhelms  the  writer :  he 
despairs  of  the  corruptions  of  the  age  (Ixvi.),  re- 
proaches himself  with  carnal  sin(cxix.),  declares  him- 
self weary  of  his  profession  of  acting  (cxi.  cxii.),  and 
foretells  his  approaching  death  (Ixxi.-lxxiv.).  Through- 
out are  dispersed  obsequious  addresses  to  the  youth  in 
his  capacity  of  sole  patron  of  the  poet's  verse  (cf.  xxiii. 
xxxvii.  c.  ci.  ciii.  civ.).  But  in  one  sequence  the  friend 
is  sorrowfully  reproved  for  bestowing  his  patronage 
on  rival  poets  (Ixxviii.-lxxxvi.).  In  three  sonnets 
near  the  close  of  the  first  group  in  the  original  edition 
the  writer  gives  varied  assurances  of  his  constancy  in 
love  or  friendship  which  apply  indifferently  to  man  or 
woman  (cf.  cxxii.  cxxiv.  cxxv.). 

In  two  sonnets  of  the  second  '  group '  (cxxvi.- 
clii.)  the  poet  compliments  his  mistress  on  her  black 
complexion  and  raven-black  hair  and  eyes.  In  twelve 
sonnets  he  hotly  denounces  his  '  dark '  mistress  for 
her  proud  disdain  of  his  affection,  and  for  her  mani- 
fold infidelities  with  other  men.  Apparently  con- 
Main  tinning  a  theme  of  the  first  'group,'  the  poet 
thrsecond  ^ebukes  the  woman,  whom  he  addresses,  for 
•group.'  having  beguiled  his  friend  to  yield  himself  to 
her  seductions  (cxxxiii.-cxxxvi.).  Elsewhere  he  makes 
satiric  reflections  on  the  extravagant  compliments 
paid  to  the  fair  sex  by  other  sonnetteers  (No.  cxxx.), 


lOO  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

or  lightly  quibbles  on  his  name  of  'Will'  (cxxx.-vi.). 
In  tone  and  subject-matter  numerous  sonnets  in  the 
second  as  in  the  first  '  group '  lack  visible  sign  of 
coherence  with  those  they  immediately  precede  or 
follow. 

It  is  not  merely  a  close  study  of  the  text  that 
confutes  the  theory,  for  which  recent  writers  have- 
fought  hard,  of  a  logical  continuity  in  Thorpe's 
arrangement  of  the  poems  in  1609.  There  remains 
the  historic  fact  that  readers  and  publishers  of  the 
seventeenth  century  acknowledged  no  sort  of  signifi- 
cance in  the  order  in  which  the  poems  first  saw  the 
light.  When  the  sonnets  were  printed  for  a  second 
time  in  1640  —  thirty-one  years  after  their  first 
appearance  —  they  were  presented  in  a  completely 
different  order.  The  short  descriptive  titles  which 
were  then  supplied  to  single  sonnets  or  to  short 
sequences  proved  that  the  collection  was  regarded  as 
a  disconnected  series  of  occasional  poems  in  more 
or  less  amorous  vein. 

In  whatever  order  Shakespeare's  sonnets  be 
studied,  the  claim  that  has  been  advanced  in  their 
Lack  of  behalf  to  rank  as  autobiographical  docu- 
flndment  nicuts  cau  Only  be  accepted  with  many 
in  Ehza-  qualifications.  Elizabethan  sonnets  were 
sonnets.  commouly  the  artificial  products  of  the  poet's 
fancy.  A  strain  of  personal  emotion  is  occasionally 
discernible  in  a  detached  effort,  and  is  vaguely  trace- 
able in  a  few  sequences  ;  but  autobiographical  con- 
fessions were  very  rarely  the  stuff  of  which  the 
Elizabethan  sonnet  was  made.     The  typical  collection 


THE   SONNETS   AND  THfilR   ITTERARY   HISTORY'     lOI 

of  Elizabethan  sonnets  was  a  mosaic  of  plagiarisms, 
a  medley  of  imitative  studies.  Echoes  of  the  French 
or  of  the  Italian  sonnetteers,  with  their  Platonic 
idealism,  are  usually  the  dominant  notes.  The  echoes 
often  have  a  musical  quality  peculiar  to  themselves. 
Daniel's  fine  sonnet  (xlix.)  on  'Care-charmer,  sleep,' 
although  directly  inspired  by  the  French,  breathes  a 
finer  melody  than  the  sonnet  of  Pierre  de  Brach  ^ 
Their  de-  apostrophisiug  *  Ic  sommeil  chasse-soin ' 
pendence     n^   t^g    Collection    entitled    '  Les    Amours 

on  French  ,     ,  x  i  r    t.i  -t  -r^ 

and  Italian  d  Aymec  ),  or  the  sonnet  of  Philippe  Des- 
modcis.  portes  invoking  '  Sommeil,  paisible  rils 
de  la  nuit  solitaire '  (in  the  collection  entitled 
'Amours  d'Hippolyte '  ).^  But,  throughout  Eliza- 
bethan sonnet  literature,  the  heavy  debt  to  Italian  and 
French  effort  is  unmistakable.'^  Spenser,  in  1569,  at 
the  outset  of  his  literary  career,  avowedly  translated 
numerous  sonnets  from  Du  Bellay  and  from  Petrarch, 
and  his  friend  Gabriel  Harvey  bestowed  on  him  the 
title  of  '  an  English  Petrarch  '  —  the  highest  praise  that 
the  critic  conceived  it  possible  to  bestow  on  an  English 
sonnetteer.^     Thomas  Watson  in  1582,  in  his  collec- 

1  1547-1604.  Cf.  De  Brach,  (Euvres  Poetiques,  edited  by  Reinhold 
Dezeimeris,  1861,  i.  pp.  59-60. 

2  See  Appendix  ix. 

3  Section  x.  of  the  Appendix  to  this  volume  supplies  a  bibliographi- 
cal note  on  the  sonnet  in  France  between  1550  and  1600,  with  a  list  of 
the  sixteenth-century  sonnetteers  of  Italy. 

*  Gabriel  Harvey,  in  his  Pierces  Supererogation  (1593,  p-  61),  after 
enthusiastic  commendation  of  Petrarch's  sonnets  ('  Petrarch's  invention 
is  pure  love  itself  ;  Petrarch's  elocution  pure  beauty  itself),  justifies  the 
common  English  practice  of  imitating  them  on  the  ground  that  '  all  the 
noblest  Italian,  French,  and  Spanish  poets  have  in  their  several  veins 


102  \yii.L!AM    SHAKESPEARE 

tion  of  metrically  irregular  sonnets  which  he  entitled 
•'EKATOMIl  A@I  A,  or  a  Passionate  Century  of  Love,' 
prefaced  each  poem,  which  he  termed  a  '  passion,'  with 
a  prose  note  of  its  origin  and  intention.  Watson  frankly 
informed  his  readers  that  one  *  passion  '  was  '  wholly 
translated  out  of  Petrarch ; '  that  in  another  passion 
'  he  did  very  busily  imitate  and  augment  a  certain  ode 
of  Ronsard  ; '  while  '  the  sense  or  matter  of  "  a  third  " 
was  taken  out  of  Serafino  in  his  "  Strambotti."  '  In 
every  case  Watson    gave  the  exact  reference  to  his 

Petrarchised  ;  and  it  is  no  dishonour  for  the  daintiest  or  divinest  IMuse 
to  be  his  scholar,  whom  the  amiablest  invention  and  beautifullest  elo- 
cution acknowledge  their  master.'  Both  French  and  English  sonnet- 
teers  habitually  admit  that  they  are  open  to  the  charge  of  plagiarising 
Petrarch's  sonnets  to  Laura  (cf.  Du  Bellay's  Les  Amours,  ed.  Becq 
de  Fouquieres,  1876,  p.  186,  and  Daniel's  Delia,  Sonnet  xxxviii.). 
The  dependent  relations  in  which  both  English  and  French  sonnetteers 
stood  to  Petrarch  may  be  best  realised  by  comparing  such  a  popular 
sonnet  of  the  Italian  master  as  No.  ciii.  (or  in  some  editions  Ixxxviii.)  in 
Sonetti  in  Vita  di  M.  Laura,  beginning  '  S'  amor  non  e,  che  dunque 
e  quel  ch'  i'  sento  ? '  with  a  rendering  of  it  into  French  like  that  of 
De  Baif  in  his  Amours  de  Fraticine  (ed.  Becq  de  Fouquieres,  p.  121), 
beginning,  'Si  ce  n'est  pas  Amour,  que  sent  donques  mon  coeur;  '  or 
with  a  rendering  of  the  same  sonnet  into  English  like  that  by  Watson 
in  his  Passionate  Century,  No.  v.,  beginning, '  If  't  bee  not  love  I  feele, 
what  is  it  then  ? '  Imitation  of  Petrarch  is  a  constant  characteristic 
of  the  English  sonnet  throughout  the  sixteenth  century  from  the  date  of 
the  earliest  efforts  of  Surrey  and  Wyatt.  It  is  interesting  to  compare 
the  skill  in  rendering  the  Italian  master  of  the  early  and  late  sonnetteers. 
Petrarch's  sonnet  In  Vita  di  M.  Laura  (No.  Ixxx.  or  Ixxxi.,  beginning 
'  Cesare,  poi  che  '1  traditor  d'  Egitto ')  was  independently  translated 
both  by  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  about  1530  (ed.  Bell,  p.  60),  and  by  Francis 
Davison  in  his  Poetical  Khapsody  (1602,  ed.  BuUen,  i.  90).  Petrarch's 
sonnet  (No.  xcv.  or  cxiii.)  was  also  rendered  independently  both  by 
Wyatt  (cf.  Puttenham's  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  ed.  Arber,  p,  23)  and 
by  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  (ed.  Ward,  i.  100,  221). 


THE   SONNETS   AND  THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY     103 

foreign  original,  and  frequently  appended  a  quotation.^ 
Drayton  in  1594,  in  the  dedicatory  sonnet  of  his  collec- 
tion of  sonnets  entitled  '  Idea,'  declared  that  it  was  '  a 
fault  too  common  in  this  latter  time  '  *  to  filch  from 
Desportes  or  from  Petrarch's  pen.'  ^  Lodge  did  not 
acknowledge  his  borrowings  more  specifically  than  his 
colleagues,  but  he  made  a  plain  profession  of  indebted- 
ness to  Desportes  when  he  wrote  :  '  Few  men  are  able 
to  second  the  sweet  conceits  of  Philippe  Desportes, 
whose  poetical  writings  are  ordinarily  in  everybody's 
hand.'  ^      Giles    Fletcher,    who    in    his  collection  of 

^  Eight  of  Watson's  sonnets  are,  according  to  his  own  account,  ren- 
derings from  Petrarch;  twelve  are  from  Serafino  dell'  Aquila  (1466- 
1500)  ;  four  each  come  from  Strozza,  an  Italian  poet,  and  from  Ronsard; 
three  from  the  Italian  poet  Agnolo  Fiorenzuola  (1493-1548);  two  each 
from  the  French  poet,  Etienne  Forcadel,  known  as  Forcatulus  (1514?- 
I573)>  the  Italian  Girolamo  Parabosco  (y?.  1548),  and  /Eneas  Sylvius; 
while  many  are  based  on  passages  from  such  authors  as  (among  the 
Greeks)  Sophocles,  Theocritus,  Apollonius  of  Rhodes  (author  of  the  epic 
'  Argonautica ') ;  or  (among  the  Latins)  Virgil,  Tibullus,  Ovid,  Horace, 
Propertius,  Seneca,  Pliny,  Lucan,  Martial,  and  Valerius  Flaccus;  or 
(among  other  modern  Italians)  Politian  (1454-94)  and  Baptista 
Mantuanus  (1448-1516);  or  (among  other  modern  Frenchmen)  Ger- 
vasius  Sepinus  of  Saumur,  writer  of  eclogues  after  the  manner  of 
Virgil  and  Mantuanus. 

-  No  importance  can  be  attached  to  Drayton's  pretensions  to  greater 
originality  than  his  neighbours.  The  very  line  in  which  he  makes  the 
claim  ('  I  am  no  pick-purse  of  another's  wit')  is  a  verbatim  theft  from 
a  sonnet  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 

3  Lodge's  Margarite,  p.  79.  See  Appendix  IX.  for  the  text  of 
Desportes's  sonnet  {Diane,  livre  ii.  No.  iii.)  and  Lodge's  translation 
in  Phillis.  Lodge  gave  two  other  translations  of  the  same  sonnet  of 
Desportes  —  in  his  romance  of  Rosalind  (^\xx\K.tx\zXi  Society's  reprint, 
p.  74),  and  in  his  volume  of  poems  called  Scillccs  Metamorphosis  (p.  44). 
Sonnet  xxxiii.  of  Lodge's  rhillis  is  rendered  with  equal  literalness  from 
Ronsard.     But  Desportes  was  Lodge's  special  master. 


I04  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

sonnets  called  '  Licia '  (1593)  simulated  the  varying 
moods  of  a  lover  under  the  sway  of  a  great  passion 
as  successfully  as  most  of  his  rivals,  stated  on  his 
title-page  that  his  poems  were  all  written  in  '  imitation 
of  the  best  Latin  poets  and  others.'  Very  many  of 
the  love-sonnets  in  the  series  of  sixty-eight  penned 
ten  years  later  by  William  Drummond  of  Hawthorn- 
den  have  been  traced  to  their  sources  in  the  Italian 
sonnets  not  merely  of  Petrarch,  but  of  the  sixteenth- 
century  poets  Guarini,  Bembo,  Giovanni  Battista 
Marino,  Tasso,  and  Sannazzaro.^  The  Elizabethans 
usually  gave  the  fictitious  mistresses  after  whom  their 
volumes  of  sonnets  were  called  the  names  that  had 
recently  served  the  like  purpose  in  France.  Daniel 
followed  Maurice  Seve^  in  christening  his  collection 
'  Delia '  ;  Constable  followed  Desportes  in  christen- 
ing his  collection  '  Diana '  ;  while  Drayton  not  only 
applied  to  his  sonnets  on  his  title-page  in  1594  the 
French  term  '  amours,'  but  bestowed  on  his  imagi- 
nary heroine  the  title  of  Idea,  which  seems  to  have 
been  the  invention  of  Claude  de  Pontoux,^  although 
it  was  employed  by  other  French  contemporaries. 

With  good  reason  Sir  Philip  Sidney  warned  the 
public  that  '  no  inward  touch '  was  to  be  expected 
from  sonnetteers  of  this  day,  whom  he  describes  as : 

[Men]  that  do  dictionary's  method  bring 
Into  their  rhymes  running  in  rattling  rows  ; 
[Men]  that  poor  Petrarch's  long-deceased  woes 
With  newborn  sighs  and  denizened  wit  do  sing. 

1  See  Drummond's  Poems,  ed.  W.  C.  Ward,  in  Muses'  Library, 
1894,  i.  207  seq. 

2  Seve's  Delie  was  first  published  at  Lyons  in  1544.  ^  I530~79' 


THE   SONNETS   AND   THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY     105 

Sidney  unconvincingly  claimed  greater  sincerity  for 
his  own  experiments.  But  '  even  amorous  sonnets  in 
Sonnet-  the  gallantcst  and  sweetest  civil  vein,'  wrote 
missions  of  Gabriel  Harvey  in  '  Pierces  Supererogation  ' 
insincerity,  in  1593,  'are  but  dainties  of  a  pleasurable 
wit.'  Drayton's  sonnets  more  nearly  approached 
Shakespeare's  in  quality  than  those  of  any  contem- 
porary. Yet  Drayton  told  the  readers  of  his  collec- 
tion entitled  '  Idea '  ^  (after  the  French)  that  if  any 
sought  genuine  passion  in  them,  they  had  better  go 
elsewhere.  '  In  all  humours  sportively  he  ranged,'  he 
declared.  Giles  Fletcher,  in  1593,  introduced  his 
collection  of  imitative  sonnets  entitled  '  Licia,  or 
Poems  of  Love,'  with  the  warning,  '  now  in  that  I 
have  written  love  sonnets,  if  any  man  measure 
my  affection  by  my  style,  let  him  say  I  am  in  love. 
.  .  .  Here,  take  this  by  the  way,  ...  a  man  may 
write    of   love   and   not   be   in    love,   as   well   as  of 

^  In  two  of  his  century  of  sonnets  (Nos.  xiii.  and  xxiv.  in  1594 
edition,  renumbered  xxxii.  and  liii.  in  1619  edition)  Drayton  hints 
that  his  'fair  Idea'  embodied  traits  of  an  identifiable  lady  of  his  ac- 
quaintance, and  he  repeats  the  hint  in  two  other  short  poems;  but 
the  fundamental  principles  of  his  sonnetteering  exploits  are  defined 
explicitly  in  Sonnet  xviii.  in   1594  edition. 

Some,  when  in  rhyme,  they  of  their  loves  do  tell,  .  .  . 
Only  I  call  \i.e.  I  call  only]  on  my  divine  Idea. 

Joachim  du  Bellay,  one  of  the  French  poets  who  anticipated  Drayton 
in  addressing  sonnets  to  '  L'Idee,'  left  the  reader  in  no  doubt  of  his  intent 
by  concluding  one  poem  thus  : 

La,  o  mon  5me.  au  plus  hault  ciel  guidee, 
Tu  y  pourras  recognoistre  I'ldee 
De  la  beaiite  qu'en  ce  monde  j'adore. 

(Du  Bellay's  Olive,  No.  c.\iii.  published  in  1568.) 


I06  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

husbandry  and  not  go  to  the  plough,  or  of  witches 
and  be  none,  or  of  holiness  and  be  profane.'  ^ 

The  dissemination  of  false  sentiment  by  the 
sonnetteers,  and  their  monotonous  and  mechanical 
Contempo-  treatment  of  '  the  pangs  of  despised  love ' 
sureo^"  or  the  joys  of  requited  affection,  did  not 
teel-s'^faise  cscape  the  ccusure  of  contemporary  criti- 
sentiment.  cism.  The  air  soon  rang  with  sarcastic 
protests  from  the  most  respected  writers  of  the  day. 
In  early  life  Gabriel  Harvey  wittily  parodied  the 
mingling  of  adulation  and  vituperation  in  the  con- 
ventional sonnet-sequence  in  his  '  Amorous  Odious 
Sonnet  intituled  The  Student's  Loove  or  Hatrid.'^ 
Chapman  in  1595,  in  a  series  of  sonnets  entitled  'A 
Coronet  for  his  mistress  Philosophy,'  appealed  to  his 
literary  comrades  to  abandon  '  the  painted  cabinet ' 
of  the  love-sonnet  for  a  coffer  of  genuine  worth.  But 
the  most  resolute  of  the  censors  of  the  sonnetteering 
vogue  was  the  poet  and  lawyer.  Sir  John  Davies.  In 
a  sonnet  addressed  about  1596  to  his  friend,  Sir 
Anthony  Cooke  (the  patron  of  Drayton's  '  Idea '),  he 
inveighed  against  the  '  bastard  sonnets  '  which  '  base 
rhymers'  '  daily '  begot  '  to  their  own  shames  and 
'Gulling  poetry's  disgrace.'  In  his  anxiety  to  stamp 
Sonnets.'  q^^-  |-j^g  folly  he  wrotc  and  circulated  in 
manuscript  a  specimen  series  of  nine  '  gulling  sonnets  ' 

1  Ben  Jonson  pointedly  noticed  the  artifice  inherent  in  the  metrical 
principles  of  the  sonnet  when  he  told  Drummond  of  Havvthornden  that 
'  he  cursed  Petrarch  for  redacting  verses  to  sonnets  which  he  said  were 
like  that  tyrant's  bed,  where  some  who  were  too  short  were  racked, 
others  too  long  cut  short'  (Jonson's  Conversation,  p.  4). 

2  See  p.  121  infra. 


THE   SONNETS  AND   THEIR   LITERARY   HISTORY     107 

or  parodies  of  the  conventional  efforts.^  Even  Shake- 
speare does  not  seem  to  have  escaped  Davies's  con- 
demnation. Sir  John  is  especially  severe  on  the 
sonnetteers  who  handled  conceits  based  on  legal 
technicalities,  and  his  eighth  'gulling  sonnet,'  in 
which  he  ridicules  the  application  of  law  terms  to 
affairs  of  the  heart,  may  well  have  been  suggested 
by  Shakespeare's  legal  phraseology  in  his  Sonnets 
Ixxxvii.  and  cxxiv.  ;^  while  Davies's  Sonnet  ix., 
beginning : 

To  love,  my  lord,  I  do  knight's  servace  owe, 

must  have  parodied  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  xxvi.,  begin- 
ning : 

Lord  of  my  love,  to  whom  in  vassalage,  &c.° 

Echoes  of  the  critical  hostility  are  heard,  it  is  curi- 
ous to  note,  in  nearly  all  the  references  that  Shake- 
shake-  speare  himself  makes  to  sonnetteering  in  his 
scornful  plays.  '  Tush,  none  but  minstrels  like  of  son- 
sonne°rin'  netting,'  exclaims  Biron  in  '  Love's  Labour's 
his  plays.  Lost '  (iv.  ill.  1 58).  In  the  'Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona'  (in.  ii.  68  seq.)  there  is  a  satiric  touch  in 
the  recipe  for  the  conventional  love-sonnet  which 
Proteus  offers  the  amorous  Duke : 

You  must  lay  lime  to  tangle  her  desires 
By  wailful  sonnets  whose  composed  rime 

1  They  were  first  printed  by  Dr.  Grosart  for  the  Chetham  Society 
in  1873  in  his  edition  of  '  the  Dr.  Farmer  MS.,'  a  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth century  commonplace  book  preserved  in  the  Chetham  Library 
at  Manchester,  pt.  i.  pp.  76-81.  Dr.  Grosart  also  included  the  poems 
in  his  edition  of  Sir  John  Davies's  Works,  1876,  ii.  53-62. 

2  Davies's  Sonnet  viii.  is  printed  in  Appendix  ix. 
*  See  p.  127  infra. 


I08  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Should  be  full  fraught  with  serviceable  vows  .  .  . 

Say  that  upon  the  altar  of  her  beauty 

You  sacrifice  your  sighs,  your  tears,  your  heart. 

Mercutio  treats  Elizabethan  sonnetteers  even  less 
respectfully  when  alluding  to  them  in  his  flouts  at 
Romeo :  '  Now  is  he  for  the  numbers  that  Petrarch 
flowed  in :  Laura,  to  his  lady,  was  but  a  kitchen- 
wench.  Marry,  she  had  a  better  love  to  be-rhyme 
her.'  1  In  later  plays  Shakespeare's  disdain  of  the 
sonnet  is  still  more  pronounced.  In  '  Henry  V  '  (iii.  vii. 
33  seq.)  the  Dauphin,  after  bestowing  ridiculously  mag- 
niloquent commendation  on  his  charger,  remarks,  *  I 
once  writ  a  sonnet  in  his  praise,  and  begun  thus : 
"  Wonder  of  nature  ! "  '  The  Duke  of  Orleans  retorts  : 
'  I  have  heard  a  sonnet  begin  so  to  one's  mistress.' 
The  Dauphin  replies :  '  Then  did  they  imitate  that 
which  I  composed  to  my  courser ;  for  my  horse  is  my 
mistress.'  In  '  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  '  (v.  ii.  4-7', 
Margaret,  Hero's  waiting-woman,  mockingly  asks 
Benedick  to  *  write  her  a  sonnet  in  praise  of  her 
beauty.'  Benedick  jestingly  promises  one  so  'in  high 
a  style  that  no  man  living  shall  come  over  it.'  Sub- 
sequently (v.  iv.  8y)  Benedick  is  convicted,  to  the 
amusement  of  his  friends,  of  penning  '  a  halting 
sonnet  of  his  own  pure  brain '  in  praise  of  Beatrice. 

1  Romeo  and  Juliet,  il.  iv.  41-4. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      IO9 


VIII 

THE  BORROWED  CONCEITS  OF  THE  SONNETS 

At  a  first  glance  a  far  larger  proportion  of  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  give  the  reader  the  illusion  of  per- 
sonal confessions  than  those  of  any  contemporary, 
but  when  allowance  has  been  made  for  the  current 
conventions  of  Elizabethan  sonnetteering,  as  well  as 
for  Shakespeare's  unapproached  affluence  in  dramatic 
Slender  au-  instiuct  and  invention  —  an  affluence  which 
tobiograph-  gj^^bied  him  to  identify  himself  with  every 

ical  ele-  J  f 

ment  in  phasc  of  human  emotion — the  autobiographic 
Shake-        element  in  his  sonnets,  although  it  may  not 

speare  s  '  '^  -^ 

sonnets.  bc  dismissed  altogether,  is  seen  to  shrink  to 
slender  proportions.  As  soon  as  the  collection  is  stud- 
ied comparatively  with  the  many  thousand  sonnets  that 
the  printing  presses  of  England,  France,  and  Italy 
poured  forth  during  the  last  years  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  a  vast  number  of  Shakespeare's  performances 
prove  to  be  little  more  than  professional  trials  of 
^^  .   .       skill,   often  of  superlative  merit,   to  which 

The  imi-  '  ^ 

tative  ele-  he  deemed  himself  challenged  by  the  efforts 
™^"^'  of  contemporary  practitioners.   The  thoughts 

and  words  of  the  sonnets  of  Daniel,  Drayton,  Watson, 
Barnabe  Barnes,  Constable,  and  Sidney  were  assimi- 
lated by  Shakespeare  in  his  poems  as  consciously  and 
with  as  little  compunction  as  the  plays  and  novels  of 


no  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

contemporaries  in  his  dramatic  work.  To  Drayton  he 
was  especially  indebted. ^  Such  resemblances  as  are 
visible  between  Shakespeare's  sonnets  and  those  of 
Petrarch  or  Desportes  seem  due  to  his  study  of  the 
English  imitators  of  those  sonnetteers.     Most  of  Ron- 

^  Mr.  Fleay  in  his  Biographical  Chronicle  of  the  English  Stage, 
ii.  226  seq.,  gives  a  striking  list  of  parallels  between  Shakespeare's  and 
Drayton's  sonnets  which  any  reader  of  the  two  collections  in  conjunc- 
tion could  easily  increase.  Mr.  Wyndham  in  his  valuable  edition  of 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  p.  255,  argues  that  Drayton  was  the  plagiarist 
of  Shakespeare,  chiefly  on  bibliographical  grounds,  which  he  does  not 
state  quite  accurately.  One  hundred  sonnets  belonging  to  Drayton's 
Idea  series  are  extant,  but  they  were  not  all  published  by  him  at  one 
time.  Fifty-three  were  alone  included  in  his  first  and  only  separate 
edition  of  1594;  six  more  appeared  in  a  reprint  of  Idea  appended  to 
the  Heroical  Epistles  in  1599;  twenty-four  of  these  were  gradually 
dropped  and  thirty-four  new  ones  substituted  in  reissues  appended 
to  volumes  of  his  writings  issued  •  respectively  in  1600,  1602,  1603, 
and  1605.  To  the  collection  thus  re-formed  a  further  addition  of 
twelve  sonnets  and  a  withdrawal  of  some  twelve  old  sonnets  were  made 
in  the  final  edition  of  Drayton's  works  in  161 9.  There  the  sonnets 
number  sixty-three.  Mr.  Wyndham  insists  that  Drayton's  latest  pub- 
lished sonnets  have  alone  an  obvious  resemblance  to  Shakespeare's 
sonnets,  and  that  they  all  more  or  less  reflect  Shakespeare's  sonnets  as 
printed  by  Thorpe  in  1 609.  But  the  whole  of  Drayton's  century  of  sonnets 
except  twelve  were  in  print  long  before  1 609,  and  it  could  easily  be  shown 
that  the  earliest  fifty-three  pubhshed  in  1594  supply  as  close  parallels 
with  Shakespeare's  sonnets  as  any  of  the  forty-seven  published  sub- 
sequently. Internal  evidence  suggests  that  all  but  one  or  two  of 
Drayton's  sonnets  were  written  by  him  in  1594,  in  the  full  tide  of 
the  sonnetteering  craze.  Almost  all  were  doubtless  in  circulation  in 
manuscript  then,  although  only  fifty-three  were  published  in  1594. 
Shakespeare  would  have  had  ready  means  of  access  to  Drayton's  manu- 
script collection.  j\Ir.  Collier  reprinted  all  the  sonnets  that  Drayton 
published  between  1594  and  1619  in  his  edition  of  Drayton's  poems 
for  the  Roxburghe  Club,  1856.  Other  editions  of  Drayton's  sonnets 
of  this  and  the  last  century  reprint  exclusively  the  collection  of  sixty- 
three  appended  to  the  edition  of  his  works  in  161 9. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      III 

sard's  nine  hundred  sonnets  and  many  of  his  numer- 
ous odes  were  accessible  to  Shakespeare  in  EngHsh 
adaptations,  but  there  are  a  few  signs  that  Shakespeare 
had  recourse  to  Ronsard  direct. 

Adapted  or  imitated  conceits  are  scattered  over 
the  whole  of  Shakespeare's  collection.  They  are 
usually  manipulated  with  consummate  skill,  but 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  is  not  thereby  obscured. 
Shakespeare  in  many  beautiful  sonnets  describes 
spring  and  summer,  night  and  sleep  and  their  influ- 
ence  on  amorous  emotion.  Such  topics  are  com- 
mon themes  of  the  poetry  of  the  Renaissance,  and  they 
figure  in  Shakespeare's  pages  clad  in  the  identical 
livery  that  clothed  them  in  the  sonnets  of  Petrarch, 
Ronsard,  De  Baif,  and  Desportes,  or  of  English 
disciples    of  the    Italian    and    French    masters.^     In 

1  Almost  all  sixteenth-century  sonnets  on  spring  in  the  absence  of 
the  poet's  love  (cf.  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  xcviii.  xcix.)  are  variations 
on  the  sentiment  and  phraseology  of  Petrarch's  well-known  sonnet 
xlii.,  '  In  morte  di  M.  Laura,'  beginning: 

Zefiro  torna  e  '1  bel  tempo  rimena, 
E  i  fiori  e  I'erbe,  sua  dolce  famiglia, 
E  garrir  Progne  e  pianger  Filomena, 
E  primavera  Candida  e  vermiglia. 

Ridono  i  prati,  e  '1  ciel  si  rasserena; 
Giove  s'  allegra  di  mirar  sua  figlia, 
L'  aria  e  1'  acqua  e  la  terra  e  d'  amor  piena; 
Ogni  animal  d'  amar  si  riconsiglia. 

Ma  per  me,  lasso,  tornano  i  piii  gravi 
Sospiri,  che  del  cor  profondo  tragge,  &c. 

See  a  translation  by  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  in  Sonnets, 
pt.  ii.  No.  ix.  Similar  sonnets  and  odes  on  April,  spring,  and  summer 
abound  in  French  and  English  (cf.  Becq  de  Fouquiere's  CEuvres  choisies 
de  J.-A.  De  Baif,  passim,  and  CEuvres  choisies  des  Contemporains  de 
Ronsard,  p.  io8  (by  Remy  Belleau) ;  p.  129  (by  Amadis  Jamyn)  et 
passim).     For  descriptions  of  night  and  sleep  see  especially  Ronsard's 


112  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Sonnet  xxiv.  Shakespeare  develops  Ronsard's  conceit 
that  his  love's  portrait  is  painted  on  his  heart ;  and  in 
Sonnet  cxxii.  he  repeats  something  of  Ronsard's  phra- 
seology in  describing  how  his  friend,  who  has  just  made 
him  a  gift  of  'tables,' is  'character'd'  in  his  brain. ^  Son- 
net xcix.,  which  reproaches  the  flowers  with  stealing 
their  charms  from  the  features  of  his  love,  is  adapted 
fromConstable'ssonnet to  Diana  (No.  ix.),  and  maybe 
matched  in  other  collections.  Elsewhere  Shakespeare 
meditates  on  the  theory  that  man  is  an  amalgam  of  the 
four  elements,  earth,  water,  air,  and  fire  (xl.-v.).^  In 
all  these  he  reproduces,  v/ith  such  embellishments  as 
his  genius  dictated,  phrases  and  sentiments  of  Daniel, 
Drayton,  Barnes,  and  Watson,  who  imported  them 
directfrom  France  and  Italy.  In  two  or  three  instances 
Shakespeare  showed  his  reader  that  he  was  engaged 
in  a  m.ere  literary  exercise  by  offering  him  alternative 
renderings  of  the  same  conventional  conceit.  In 
Sonnets  xlvi.  and  xlvii.  he  paraphrases  twice  over  — 
appropriating  many  of  Watson's  words  —  the  unexhila- 
rating  notion  that  the  eye  and  heart  are  in  perpetual 
dispute   as  to  which    has    the    greater   influence  on 

Amours  (livre  i.  clxxxvi.,  livre  ii.  xxii. ;  Odes,  livre  iv.  No.  iv.,  and 
his  Odes  Retranchees  in  CEtivres,  edited  by  Blanchemain,  ii.  392-4). 
Cf.  Barnes's  Parthenophe  and  Parthenophil,  Ixxxiii.  cv. 

1  Cf.  Ronsard's  Amotcrs,  livre  clxxviii. ;   Amours  pour  Astree,  vi. 
The  latter  opens : 

II  ne  falloit,  mais  tresse,  autres  tablettes 
Pour  vous  graver  que  celles  de  mon  coeur 
Ou  de  sa  main  Amour,  nostre  vainqueur, 
Vous  a  gravee  et  vos  graces  parfaites. 

^  Cf.  Spenser,  Iv.;    Barnes's  Parthenophe  and  Parthenophil,  No, 
Ixxvii.;   Fulke  Greville's  Calica,  No.  vii. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      I  I  3 

lovers.^  In  the  concluding  sonnets,  cliii.  and  cliv.,  he 
gives  alternative  versions  of  an  apologue  illustrating 
the  potency  of  love  which  first  figured  in  the  Greek 
anthology,  had  been  translated  into  Latin,  and  sub- 
sequently won  the  notice  of  English,  French,  and 
Italian  sonn^tteers.^ 

In  the  numerous  sonnets  in  which  Shakespeare 
Shake-  boastcd  that  his  verse  was  so  certain  of  im- 
ckTimsof  mortality  that  it  was  capable  of  immortal- 
taiity°for  ising  the  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed, 
his  sonnets  hg    gavc   voicc   to    uo    couviction  that  was 

a  borrowed  "  _ 

conceit.  peculiar  to  his  mental  constitution,  to 
no  involuntary   exaltation  of  spirit,   or    spontaneous 

^  A  similar  conceit  is  the  topic  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  xxiv. 
Ronsard's  Ode  (livre  iv.  No.  xx.)  consists  of  a  like  dialogue  between 
the  heart  and  the  eye.  The  conceit  is  traceable  to  Petrarch,  whose 
Sonnet  Iv.  or  Ixiii.  ('  Occhi,  piangete,  accompagnate  il  core ')  is  a  dia- 
logue between  the  poet  and  h'is  eyes,  while  his  Sonnet  xcix.  or  cxvii.  is 
a  companion  dialogue  between  the  poet  and  his  heart.  Cf.  Watson's 
Tears  of  Fancie,  xix.  xx.  (a  pair  of  sonnets  on  the  theme  which  closely 
resemble  Shakespeare's  pair) ;  Drayton's  Idea,  xxxiii. ;  Barnes's  Par- 
ihenophe  and Parthenophil,  xx.,  and  Constable's  Diana,  vi.  7. 

^  The  Greek  epigram  is  in  Palatine  Anthology,  ix.  627,  and  is 
translated  into  Latin  in  Selecta  Epigratmnata,  Basel,  1529.  The 
Greek  lines  relate,  as  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  how  a  nymph  who 
sought  to  quench  love's  torch  in  a  fountain  only  succeeded  in  heating 
the  water.  An  added  detail  Shakespeare  borrowed  from  a  very  recent 
adaptation  of  the  epigram  in  Giles  Fletcher's  Licia^  1593  (Sonnet 
xxvii.),  where  the  poet's  Love  bathes  in  the  fountain,  with  the  result 
not  only  that '  she  touched  the  water  and  it  burnt  with  Love,'  but  also 

Now  by  her  means  it  purchased  hath  that  bliss 
Which  all  diseases  quickly  can  remove. 

Similarly  Shakespeare  in  Sonnet  cliv.  not  merely  states  that  the  *  cool 
well '  into  which  Cupid's  torch  had  fallen  '  from  Love's  fire  took  heat 
perpetual,'  but  also  that  it  grew  '  a  bath  and  healthful  remedy  for  men 
diseased.' 

I 


114  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ebullition  of  feeling.  He  was  merely  proving  that 
he  could  at  will,  and  with  superior  effect,  handle  a 
theme  that  Ronsard  and  Desportes,  emulating  Pindar, 
Horace,  Ovid,  and  other  classical  poets,  had  lately- 
made  a  commonplace  of  the  poetry  of  Europe.^  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  in  his 'Apologie  for  Poetrie' (1595), 
wrote  that  it  was  the  common  habit  of  poets  'to 
tell  you  that  they  will  make  you  immortal  by  their 
verses.'^  'Men  of  great  calling,'  Nash  wrote  in  his 
'  Pierce  Pennilesse,'  1593,  'take  it  of  merit  to  have  their 
names  eternised  by  poets.' ^  In  the  hands  of  Eliza- 
bethan  sonnetteers  the  '  eternising '  faculty  of  their 

1  In  Greek  poetry  the  topic  is  treated  in  Pindar's  Olympic  Odes,  xi, 
and  in  a  fragment  by  Sappho,  No.  i6  in  Bergk's  Poetm  Lyrici  Grceci. 
In  Latin  poetry  the  topic  is  treated  in  Ennius  as  quoted  in  Cicero, 
De  Senectute  c.  207;  in  Horace's  Odes  iii.  30;  in  Virgil's  Georgics 
iii.  9;  in  Propertius  iii.  i;  in  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  xv.  871  seq.  and 
in  Martial  x.  27  seq.  Among  French  sonnetteers  Ronsard  attacked  the 
theme  most  boldly.  His  odes  and  sonnets  promise  immortality  to  the 
persons  to  whom  they  are  addressed  with  an  extravagant  and  a 
monotonous  liberality.  The  following  lines  from  Ronsard's  Ode  (livre 
i.  No.  vii.),  '  Au  Seigneur  Carnavalet,'  illustrate  his  habitual  treatment 
of  the  theme  : 


C'est  un  travail  de  bon-heur 
Chanter  les  hommes  louables, 
Et  leur  bastir  un  honneur 
Seul  vainqueur  des  ans  muables. 
Le  marbre  ou  I'airain  vestu 
D'un  labeur  vif  par  I'enclume 
N'animent  tant  la  vertu 
Que  les  Muses  par  la  plume.  .  . 


Les  neuf  divines  pucelles 
Gardent  ta  gloire  chez  elles; 
Et  mon  luth,  qu'ell'ont  fait  estre 
De  leurs  secrets  le  grand  prestre, 
Par  cest  hymne  solennel 
Respandra  dessus  ta  race 
Je  ne  s^ay  quoy  de  sa  grace 
Qui  te  doit  faire  eternel. 


{QLtivres  de  Rottsard,  ed.  Blanchemain,  ii.  58,  62.) 
I  quote  two  other  instances  from  Ronsard  on  p.  116,  note  i. 
Desportes  was  also  prone  to  indulge  in  the  same  conceit;  cf.  his 
Cleonice,  sonnet  62,  which  Daniel  appropriated  bodily  in  his  Delia 
(Sonnet  xxvi.).  Desportes  warns  his  mistress  that  she  will  live  in  his 
verse  like  the  phoenix  in  fire. 

2  Ed.  Shuckburgh,  p.  62.  ^  Shakespeare  Soc.  p.  93. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      II5 

verse  became  a  staple  and  indeed  an  inevitable  topic. 
Spenser  wrote  in  his  'Amoretti'  (1595,  Sonnet  Ixxv.): 

My  verse  your  virtues  rare  shall  eternise, 
And  in  the  heavens  write  your  glorious  name. 

Drayton  and  Daniel  developed  the  conceit  with 
unblushing  iteration,  Drayton,  who  spoke  of  his 
efforts  as  'my  immortal  song  '  {Idea,  vi.  14)  and  'my 
world-out-wearing  rhymes '  (xliv.  7),  embodied  the 
vaunt  in  such  lines  as: 

While  thus  my  pen  strives  to  eternise  thee  (^Idea  xliv.  i). 
Ensuing  ages  yet  my  rhymes  shall  cherish  {ib.  xliv.  11). 
My  name  shall  mount  unto  eternity  {ib.  xliv.  14). 
All  that  I  seek  is  to  eternise  thee  {ib.  xlvii.  14), 

Daniel  was  no  less  explicit : 

This  [sc.  verse]  may  remain  thy  lasting  monument  (Z)t'/2«  xxxvii.  9). 

Thou  mayst  in  after  ages  live  esteemed, 

Unburied  in  these  lines  {ib.  xxxix.  9-10). 

These  [sc.  my  verses]  are  the  arks,  the  trophies  I  erect 

That  fortify  thy  name  against  old  age; 

And  these  [sc.  verses]  thy  sacred  virtues  must  protect 

Against  the  dark  and  time's  consuming  rage  {ib.  L.  9-12). 

Shakespeare,  in  his  references  to  his  '  eternal 
lines'  (xviii.  12)  and  in  the  assurances  that  he  gives 
the  subject  of  his  addresses  that  the  sonnets  are, 
in  Daniel's  exact  phrase,  his  'monument'  (Ixxxi.  9, 
cvii.  13),  was  merely  accommodating  himself  to  the 
prevailing  taste.  Characteristically  in  Sonnet  Iv. 
he  invested  the  topic  with  a  splendour  that  was  not 
approached  by  any  other  poet :  ^ 

1  Other  references  to  the  topic  appear  in  Sonnets  xix.  liv.  Ix.  Ixiii. 
Ixv.  Ixxxi.  and  cvii. 


Il6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Not  marlale,  nor  the  gilded  monuments 

Of  princes,  shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme;  ^ 

But  you  shall  shine  more  bright  in  these  contents 

Than  unswept  stone,  besmear'd  with  sluttish  time. 

When  wasteful  war  shall  statues  overturn, 

And  broils  root  out  the  work  of  masonry. 

Nor  Mars  his  sword  nor  war's  quick  fire  shall  burn 

The  living  record  of  your  memory. 

'Gainst  death  and  all-oblivious  enmity 

Shall  you  pace  forth;    your  praise  shall  still  find  room, 

Even  in  the  eyes  of  all  posterity 

That  wear  this  world  out  to  the  ending  doom. 

So,  till  the  judgment  that  yourself  arise, 

You  live  in  this,  and  dwell  in  lovers'  eyes. 

The  imitative  element  is  no  less  conspicuous  in 
the  sonnets  that  Shakespeare  distinctively  addresses 

1  See  the  quotation  from  Ronsard  on  p.  114,  note  i.     This  sonnet 
is  also  very  like   Ronsard's  Ode  (livre  v.  No.  xxxii.)  '  A  sa  Muse,' 

which  opens: 

Plus  dur  que  fer  j'ay  fini  mon  ouvrage, 
Que  I'an,  dispos  a  demener  les  pas, 
Que  I'eau,  le  vent  ou  le  brulant  orage, 
L'injuriant,  ne  ru'ront  point  a  bas. 
Quand  ce  viendra  que  le  dernier  trespas 
M'assoupira  d'un  somme  dur,  a  I'heure, 
Sous  le  tombeau  tout  Ronsard  n'ira  pas 
Restant  de  luy  la  part  meilleure.  .  .  . 
Sus  donque,  Muse,  emporte  au  ciel  la  gloire 
Que  j'ay  gaignee,  annongant  la  victoire 
Dont  a  bon  droit  je  me  voy  jouissant.  .  .  . 

Cf.  also  Ronsard's  Sonnet  Ixxii.  in  Amours  (livre  i.),  where  he  declares 
that  his  mistress's  name 

Victorieux  des  peuples  et  des  rois 

S'en  voleroit  sus  I'aile  de  ma  ryme. 

But  Shakespeare,  like  Ronsard,  knew  Horace's  far-famed  Ode  (bk.  iii. 

30)=  ^      . 

Exegi  monumentum  aere  perennius 

Regalique  situ  pyramidum  altius, 
Quod  non  imber  edax,  non  Aquilo  impotens 
Possit  diruere,  ant  innumerabilis 
Annorum  series,  et  fuga  temporum. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      I17 

to  a  woman.  In  two  of  the  latter  (cxxxv.-vi.),  where 
he  quibbles  over  the  fact  of  the  identity  of  his  own 
name  of  Will  with  a  lady's  '  will '  (the  synonym  in 
E^lizabethan  English  of  both  'lust'  and  'obstinacy'), 
he  derisively  challenges  comparison  with  wire-drawn 
Conceits  in  conccits  of  rival  sonnetteers,  especially  of  Bar- 
sonnets  a  -  ^^Q  Barnes,  who  had  enlarged  on  his  disdain- 
dressed  to  '  o 

a  woman,  ful  mistress's  '  wills,'  and  had  turned  the  word 
*  grace '  to  the  same  punning  account  as  Shakespeare 

Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  Shakespeare  wrote  with  a  direct 
reference  to  the  concluding  ten  lines  of  Ovid's  Aletamorphoses  (xv, 

871-9):  ,    .   .  . 

Jamque  opus  exegi,  quod  nee  Jovis  ira  nee  ignes, 

Nee  poterit  ferrum,  nee  edax  abolere  vetustas. 

Cum  volet,  ilia  dies,  quae  nil  nisi  corporis  hujus 

Jus  habet,  incerti  spatium  mihi  finiat  aevi; 

Parte  tamen  meliore  mei  super  aha  perennis 

Astra  ferar  nomenque  erit  indelebile  nostrum. 

This  passage  was  familiar  to  Shakespeare  in  one  of  his  favourite  books 
—  Golding's  translation  of  the  Metaniorphoses.  Golding's  rendering 
opens : 

Now  have  I  brought  a  worke  to  end  which  neither  Jove's  fierce  wrath 
Nor  sword  nor  fire  nor  fretting  age,  with  all  the  force  it  hath 
Are  able  to  abolish  quite,  &c. 

Meres,  after  his  mention  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  in  his  Palladis  Tamia 
(1598),  quotes  parts  of  both  passages  from  Horace  and  Ovid,  and  gives 
a  Latin  paraphrase  of  his  own,  which,  he  says,  would  fit  the  lips  of  four 
contemporary  poets  besides  Shakespeare.  The  introduction  of  the  name 
Mars  into  Meres's  paraphrase  as  well  as  into  line  7  of  Shakespeare's 
Sonnet  Iv.  led  Mr.  Tyler  (on  what  are  in  any  case  very  trivial  grounds)  to 
the  assumption  that  Shakespeare  was  borrowing  from  his  admiring  critic, 
and  was  therefore  writing  after  1598,  when  Meres's  book  was  published. 
In  Golding's  translation  reference  is  made  to  Mars  by  name  (the  Latin 
here  calls  the  god  Gradivus)  a  few  lines  above  the  passage  already 
quoted,  and  the  word  caught  Shakespeare's  eye  there.  Shakespeare 
owed  nothing  to  Meres's  paraphrase,  but  Meres  probably  owed  much  to 
passages  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets. 


Il8  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

turned  the  word  '  will.'  ^  Similarly  in  Sonnet  cxxx. 
beginning 

My  mistress's  eyes  are  nothing  like  the  sun; 
Coral  is  far  more  red  than  her  lips'  red  .  .  . 
If  hairs  be  wires,  black  wires  grow  on  her  head.'^ 

he  satirises  the  conventional  lists  of  precious  stones, 
metals,  and  flowers,  to  which  the  sonnetteers  likened 
their  mistresses'  features. 

In  two  sonnets  (cxxvii.  and  cxxxii.)  Shakespeare 
amiably  notices  the  black  complexion,  hair,  and 
„  .  eyes  of  his  mistress,  and  expresses  a  pref- 
of  black-  erence  for  features  of  that  hue  over  those  of 
""^'  the  fair  hue  which  was,  he  tells  us,  more 

often  associated  in  poetry  with  beauty.  He  com- 
mends the  '  dark  lady '  for  refusing  to  practise  those 
arts  by  which  other  women  of  the  day  gave  their  hair 
and  faces  colours  denied  them  by  Nature.  Here 
Shakespeare  repeats  almost  verbatim  his  own  lines 
in  'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  (iv.  iii.  241-7),  where  the 
heroine  Rosaline  is  described  as  '  black  as  ebony,' 
with  '  brows  decked  in  black,'  and  in  '  mourning '  for 

1  See  Appendix  viil.,  '  The  Will  Sonnets,'  for  the  interpretation 
of  Shakespeare's  conceit  and  like  efforts  of  Barnes. 

2  Wires  in  the  sense  of  hair  was  peculiarly  distinctive  of  the 
sonnetteers'  affected  vocabulary.  Cf.  Daniel's  Delia,  1591,  No.  xxvi., 
'And  golden  hair  may  change  to  silver  ivire  ;^  Lodge's  Phillis,  1595, 
'  Made  blush  the  beauties  of  her  curled  7vire  ;  '  Barnes's  Parthenophil, 
sonnet  xlviii.,  '  Her  hairs  no  grace  of  golden  wires  want.'  The  com- 
parison of  lips  with  coral  is  not  uncommon  outside  the  Elizabethan 
sonnet,  but  it  was  universal  there.  Cf. '  Coral-coloured  lips '  {Zep/ieria, 
1594,  No.  xxiii.) ;  '  No  coral  is  her  lip '  (Lodge's  Phillis,  1595,  No.  viii,). 
'Ce  beau  coral'  are  the  opening  words  of  Ronsard's  Amours,  livre  i. 
No.  xxiii.,  where  a  list  is  given  of  stones  and  metals  comparable  with 
women's  features. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS       II9 

her  fashionable  sisters'  indulgence  in  the  disguising 
arts  of  the  toilet.  '  No  face  is  fair  that  is  not  full  so 
black,'  exclaims  Rosaline's  lover.  But  neither  in  the 
sonnets  nor  in  the  play  can  Shakespeare's  praise  of 
'  blackness  '  claim  the  merit  of  being  his  own  invention. 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  in  sonnet  vii.  of  his  '  Astrophel 
and  Stella,'  had  anticipated  it.  The  '  beams '  of  the 
eyes  of  Sidney's  mistress  were  '  wrapt  in  colour 
black  '  and  wore  '  this  mourning  weed '  so 

That  whereas  black  seems  beauty's  contrary, 
She  even  in  black  doth  make  all  beauties  flow.^ 

To  his  praise  of  '  blackness '  in  '  Love's  Labour's 
Lost '  Shakespeare  appends  a  playful  but  caustic 
comment  on  the  paradox  that  he  detects  in  the  con- 
ceit.^ Similarly,  the  sonnets,  in  which  a  dark  com- 
plexion is  pronounced  to  be  a  mark  of  beauty,  are 
followed  by  others  in  which  the  poet  argues  in  self- 
confutation  that  blackness  of  feature  is  hideous  in  a 
woman,  and  invariably  indicates  moral  turpitude  or 
blackness  of  heart.  Twice,  in  much  the  same  language 
as  had  already  served  a  like  purpose  in  the  play,  does 

^  Shakespeare  adopted  this  phraseology  of  Sidney  literally  in  both 
the  play  and  the  sonnet;  while  Sidney's  further  conceit  that  the  lady's 
eyes  are  in  '  this  mourning  weed '  in  order  '  to  honour  all  their  deaths 
who  for  her  bleed'  is  reproduced  in  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  cxxxii.  —  one 
of  the  two  under  consideration  —  where  he  tells  his  mistress  that  her  eyes 
'have  put  on  black'  to  become  'loving  mourners'  of  him  who  is  denied 
her  love. 

2  O  paradox !     Black  is  the  badge  of  hell, 
The  hue  of  dungeons  and  the  scowl  of  night  {Love's  Labour  s  Lost,  iv.  iii.  254-5) 
To  look  like  her  are  chimney-sweepers  black, 
And  since  her  time  are  colliers  counted  bright. 
And  Ethiops  of  their  sweet  complexion  crack. 
Dark  needs  no  candle  now,  for  dark  is  light  (_ib.  266-5)» 


I20  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

he  mock  his  '  dark  lady '  with  this  uncomplimentary 
interpretation  of  dark-coloured  hair  and  eyes. 

The  two  sonnets,  in  which  this  view  of  'blackness' 
is  developed,  form  part  of  a  series  of  twelve,  which 
belongs  to  a  special  category  of  sonnetteering  effort. 
In  them  Shakespeare  abandons  the  sugared  sentiment 
which  characterises  most  of  his  hundred  and  forty-two 
remaining  sonnets.  He  grows  vituperative  and  pours 
The  son-  a  volIcy  of  passiouatc  abuse  upon  a  woman 
vUupeia-  whom  he  represents  as  disdaining  his  ad- 
tion.  vances.     The  genuine  anguish  of  a  rejected 

lover  often  expresses  itself  in  curses  both  loud  and  deep, 
but  the  mood  of  blinding  wrath  which  the  rejection  of 
a  lovesuit  may  rouse  in  a  passionate  nature  does 
not  seem  from  the  internal  evidence  to  be  reflected 
genuinely  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets  of  vituperation. 
It  was  inherent  in  Shakespeare's  genius  that  he  should 
import  more  dramatic  intensity  than  any  other  poet  into 
sonnets  of  a  vituperative  type  ;  but  there  is  also  in  his 
vituperative  sonnets  a  declamatory  parade  of  figurative 
extravagance  which  suggests  that  the  emotion  is  feigned 
and  that  the  poet  is  striking  an  attitude.  He  cannot 
have  been  in  earnest  in  seeking  to  conciliate  his  dis- 
dainful mistress  —  a  result  at  which  the  vituperative 
sonnets  purport  to  aim  —  when  he  tells  her  that  she 
is  '  black  as  hell,  as  dark  as  night,'  and  with  '  so  foul 
a  face '  is  '  the  bay  where  all  men  ride.' 

But  external  evidence  is  more  conclusive  as  to  the 
artificial  construction  of  the  vituperative  sonnets. 
Again  a  comparison  of  this  series  with  the  efforts  of 
the  modish  sonnetteers  assigns  to  it  its  true  character. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      121 

Every  sonnetteer  of  the  sixteenth  century,  at  some 
point  in  his  career,  devoted  his  energies  to  vituperation 
of  a  cruel  siren.  Ronsard  in  his  sonnets  celebrated  in 
language  quite  as  furious  as  Shakespeare's  a  '  fierce 
tigress,' a  'murderess,'  a  'Medusa.'  Barnabe  Barnes 
affected  to  contend  in  his  sonnets  with  a  female  'tyrant,' 
a  'Medusa,'  a'rock.'  'Wornen' (Barnes laments) 'are by 
nature  proud  as  devils.'  The  monotonous  and  artificial 
regularity  with  which  the  sonnetteers  sounded  the  vitu- 
perative stop,  whenever  they  had  exhausted  their  notes 
of  adulation,  excited  ridicule  in  both  England  and 
France.  In  Shakespeare's  early  life  the  convention  was 
wittily  parodied  by  Gabriel  Harvey  in  'An  Amorous 
Odious  sonnet  intituled  The  Student's  Loove  or 
Hatrid,  or  both  or  neither,  or  what  shall  please  the 
Gabriel  looviug  or  hating  reader,  either  in  sport  or 
Harvey's  earnest,  to  make  of  such  contrary  passions 
Odious  as  are  here  discoursed.' ^  After  extolling  the 
Sonnet.'  bcauty  and  virtue  of  his  mistress  above  that 
of  Aretino's  Angelica,  Petrarch's  Laura,  Catullus's 
Lesbia,  and  eight  other  far-famed  objects  of  poetic 
adoration,  Harvey  suddenly  denounces  her  in  bur- 
lesque rhyme  as  '  a  serpent  in  brood,'  '  a  poisonous 
toad,'  'a  heart  of  marble,'  and  'a  stony  mind  as 
passionless  as  a  block.'     Finally  he  tells  her, 

If  ever  there  were  she-devils  incarnate, 
They  are  altogether  in  thee  incorporate. 

In  France  Etienne  Jodelle,  a  professional  sonnet- 

1  The  parody,  which  is  not  in  sonnet  form,  is  printed  in  Harvey's 
Letter-book  (Camden  Soc.  pp.  101-43). 


122  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

leer  although  he  is  best  known  as  a  dramatist,  made 
,  ,  ,,  ,        late  in  the  second  half  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 

Jodelle  s 

•Contr'  tury  an  independent  endeavour  of  like  kind  to 
I  mours.  ^i{^Q  by  means  of  parody  the  vogue  of  the 
vituperative  sonnet.  Jodelle  designed  a  collection  of 
three  hundred  sonnets  which  he  inscribed  to  '  hate  of  a 
woman,'  and  he  appropriately  entitled  them  *  Contr' 
Amours  '  in  distinction  to  'Amours,'  the  term  applied 
to  sonnets  in  the  honeyed  vein.  Only  seven  of  Jodelle's 
'  Contr'  Amours '  are  extant,  but  there  is  sufficient 
identity  of  tone  between  them  and  Shakespeare's  vitu- 
perative efforts  almost  to  discover  in  Shakespeare's  in- 
vectives a  spark  of  Jodelle's  satiric  fire.^  The  dark  lady 

1  No.  vii.  of  Jodelle's  Contr''  Amours  runs  thus : 

Combien  de  fois  mes  vers  ont-ils  dord 

Ces  cheueux  noirs  dignes  d'vne  Meduse? 

Combien  de  fois  ce  teint  noir  qui  m'amuse, 

Ay-ie  de  lis  et  roses  colore? 
Combien  ce  front  de  rides  laboure 

Ay-ie  applani?  et  quel  a  fait  ma  Muse 

Le  gros  sourcil,  ou  folle  elle  s'abuse, 

Ayant  sur  luy  Tare  d' Amour  figure? 
Quel  ay-ie  fait  son  oeil  se  renfon^ant? 

Quel  ay-ie  fait  son  grand  nez  rougissant? 

Quelle  sa  bouche  et  ses  noires  dents  quelles? 
Quel  ay-ie  fait  le  reste  de  ce  corps? 

Qui,  me  sentant  endurer  mille  morts, 

Viuoit  heureux  de  mes  peines  mortelles. 

(Jodelle's  (Euvrcs,  1597,  pp.  91-94.) 

With  this  should  be  compared  Shakespeare's  sonnets  cxxxvii.,  cxlviii., 
and  cl.  Jodelle's  feigned  remorse  for  having  lauded  the  black  hair  and 
complexion  of  his  mistress  is  one  of  the  most  singular  of  several  strange 
coincidences.  In  No.  vi.  of  Jodelle's  Contr''  Amours,  Jodelle,  after  re- 
proaching his  '  traitres  vers '  with  having  untruthfully  described  his 
siren  as  a  beauty,  concludes : 

Ja  si  long  temps  faisant  d'un  Diable  vn  Ange 
Vans  m'ouurez  I'oeil  en  I'iniuste  louange, 
Et  ni'aueuglez  en  I'iniuste  tourment. 


THE   BORROWED   CONCEITS   OF  THE   SONNETS      123 

of  Shakespeare's  *  sonnets  '  may  therefore  be  relegated 
to  the  ranks  of  the  creatures  of  his  fancy.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  he  may  have  met  in  real  life  a  dark- 
complexioned  siren,  and  it  is  possible  that  he  may  have 
fared  ill  at  her  disdainful  hands.  But  no  such  incident 
is  needed  to  account  for  the  presence  of  'the  dark 
lady  '  in  the  sonnets.  It  was  the  exacting  conventions 
of  the  sonnetteering  contagion,  and  not  his  personal 
experiences  or  emotions,  that  impelled  Shakespeare  to 
give  '  the  dark  lady '  of  his  sonnets  a  poetic  being. ^ 
She  has  been  compared,  not  very  justly,  with  Shake- 
speare's splendid  creation  of  Cleopatra  in  his  play  of 

With  this  should  be  compared  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  cxHv.  lines  9-10: 

And  whether  that  my  angel  be  turn'd  fiend 
Suspect  I  may,  yet  not  directly  tell. 

A  conventional  sonnet  of  extravagant  vituperation,  which  Drummond 
of  Hawthornden  translated  from  JMarino  (^Rime,  1602,  pt.  i.  p.  76)  is 
introduced  with  grotesque  inappropriateness  into  Drummond's  collection 
of  '  sugared '  sonnets  (see  pt.  i.  No.  xxxv. :  Drummond's  Poems,  ed. 
W.  C.  Ward,  i.  69,  217). 

1  The  theories  that  all  the  sonnets  addressed  to  a  woman  were 
addressed  to  the  '  dark  lady,'  and  that  the  '  dark  lady '  is  identifiable 
with  Mary  Fitton,  a  mistress  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  are  baseless 
conjectures.  The  extant  portraits  of  Mary  Fitton  prove  her  to  be  fair. 
The  introduction  of  her  name  into  the  discussion  is  solely  due  to  the 
mistaken  notion  that  Shakespeare  was  the  protege  of  Pembroke,  that 
most  of  the  sonnets  were  addressed  to  him,  and  that  the  poet  was  prob- 
ably acquainted  with  his  patron's  mistress.  See  Appendix  vii.  The 
expressions  in  two  of  the  vituperative  sonnets  to  the  effect  that  the  dis- 
dainful mistress  had'  robb'd  others'  beds'  revenues  of  their  rents'  (cxlii.  8) 
and '  in  act  her  bed-vow  broke '  (clii.  37)  have  been  held  to  imply  that 
the  woman  denounced  by  Shakespeare  was  married.  The  first  quotation 
can  only  mean  that  she  was  unfaithful  with  married  men,  but  both 
quotations  seem  to  be  general  phrases  of  abuse,  the  meaning  of  which 
should  not  be  pressed  closely.  ' 


124  WILLIAM   SIL'VKESPEARE 

'  Antony  and  Cleopatra.'  From  one  point  of  view  the 
same  criticism  may  be  passed  on  both.  There  is  no 
greater  and  no  less  ground  for  seeking  in  Shakespeare's 
personal  environment  the  original  of  '  the  dark  lady ' 
of  his  sonnets  than  for  seeking  there  the  original  of  his 
Queen  of  Egypt. 


PATRONAGE  OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON      1 25 


IX 

THE  PATRONAGE    OF  THE  EARL    OF 
SOUTHAMPTON 

Amid  the  borrowed  conceits  and  poetic  figures  of 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  there  kirk  suggestive  references 
to  the  circumstances  in  his  external  life  that  attended 
their  composition.  If  few  can  be  safely  regarded  as 
autobiographic  revelations  of  sentiment,  many  of  them 
offer  evidence  of  the  relations  in  which  he  stood  to  a 
patron,  and  to  the  position  that  he  sought  to  fill  in 
the  circle  of  that  patron's  literary  retainers.  Twenty 
Biographic  sonnets,  which  may  for  purposes  of  exposition 
fact  in  the     \^q  entitled '  dedicatory '  sonnets,  are  addressed 

'dedica-  1        •       i      1  i        •  ,  .    , 

tory'  to  one  who  is  declared  without  periphrasis 

sonnets.  g^j^^j  without  disguisc  to  be  a  patron  of  the 
poet's  verse  (Nos.  xxiii.,  xxvi.,  xxxii.,  xxxvii.,  xxxviii., 
Ixix.,  Ixxvii.-lxxxvi.,  c,  ci.,  ciii.,  cvi.).  In  one  of  these 
—  Sonnet  Ixxviii.  —  Shakespeare  asserted  : 

So  oft  have  I  invoked  thee  for  my  Muse 
And  found  such  fair  assistance  in  my  verse 
As  every  alien  pen  hath  got  my  use 
And  under  thee  their  poesy  disperse. 

Subsequently  he  regretfully  pointed  out  how  his 
patron's  readiness    to    accept   the  homage  of   other 


126  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

poets  seemed  to  be  thrusting  him  from  the  enviable 
place  of  pre-eminence  in  his  patron's  esteem. 

Shakespeare's  biographer  is  under  an  obligation 
The  Earl  to  attempt  an  identification  of  the  persons 
of  South-  whose  relations  with  the  poet  are  defined  so 
the  poets  explicitly.  The  problem  presented  by  the 
soiepatron.  patron  is  simple.  Shakespeare  states  un- 
equivocally that  he  has  no  patron  but  one. 

Sing  [sc.  O  Muse !]  to  the  ear  that  doth  thy  lays  esteem, 
And  gives  thy  pen  both  skill  and  argument  (c.  7-8). 
For  to  no  other  pass  my  verses  tend 
Than  of  your  graces  and  your  gifts  to  tell  (ciii.  11-12). 

The  Earl  of  Southampton,  the  patron  of  his  narrative 
poems,  is  the  only  patron  of  Shakespeare  that  is  known 
to  biographical  research.  No  contemporary  document 
or  tradition  gives  the  faintest  suggestion  that  Shake- 
speare was  the  friend  or  dependent  of  any  other  man 
of  rank.  A  trustworthy  tradition  corroborates  the 
testimony  respecting  Shakespeare's  close  intimacy 
with  the  Earl  that  is  given  in  the  dedicatory  epistles 
of  his  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  and  '  Lucrece,'  penned 
respectively  in  1593  and  1594.  According  to  Nicho- 
las Rowe,  Shakespeare's  first  adequate  biographer, 
'  there  is  one  instance  so  singular  in  its  magnificence 
of  this  patron  of  Shakespeare's  that  if  I  had  not 
been  assured  that  the  story  was  handed  down  by 
Sir  William  D'Avenant,  who  was  probably  very  well 
acquainted  with  his  affairs,  I  should  not  venture  to 
have  inserted ;  that  my  Lord  Southampton  at  one 
time  gave  him  a  thousand  pounds  to  enable  him  to 
go  through  with  a  purchase  which  he  heard  he  had  a 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON      12/ 

mind  to.     A  bounty  very  great  and  very  rare  at  any 
time.' 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  detecting  the  lineaments 
of  the  Earl  of  Southampton  in  those  of  the  man 
who  is  distinctively  greeted  in  the  sonnets  as  the 
poet's  patron.  Three  of  the  twenty  '  dedicatory ' 
sonnets  merely  translate  into  the  language  of  poetry 
the  expressions  of  devotion  which  had  already  done 
duty  in  the  dedicatory  epistle  in  prose  that  prefaces 
'  Lucrece.'     That  epistle  to  Southampton  runs: 

The  love  ^  I  dedicate  to  your  lordship  is  without  end;  whereof  this 
pamphlet,  without  beginning,  is  but  a  superfluous  moiety.  The  warrant 
I  have  of  your  honourable  disposition,  not  the  worth  of  my  untutored 
Jines,  makes  it  assured  of  acceptance.  What  I  have  done  is  yours; 
what  I  have  to  do  is  yours;  being  part  of  all  I  have  devoted  yours. 
Were  my  worth  greater,  my  duty  would  show  greater;  meanwhile,  as 
it  is,  it  is  bound  to  your  lordship,  to  whom  I  wish  long  life,  still 
lengthened  with  all  happiness. 

Your  lordship's  in  all  duty, 

William  Shakespeare. 

Sonnet  xxvi.  is  a  gorgeous  rendering  of  these 
sentences : 

1  '  Lover '  and  '  love '  in  Elizabethan  English  were  ordinary 
synonyms  for  '  friend  '  and  'friendship.'  Brutus  opens  his  address  to 
the  citizens  of  Rome  with  the  words,  '  Romans,  countrymen,  and  lovers,^ 
and  subsequently  describes  Julius  Caesar  as  '  my  best  lover '  {^Julius 
Casar,  iii.  ii.  13-49).  Portia,  when  referring  to  Antonio,  the  bosom 
friend  of  her  husband  Bassanio,  calls  him  '  the  bosom  lover  of  my  lord ' 
(^Merchant  of  Venice,  III.  iv.  17).  Ben  Jonson  in  his  letters  to  Donne 
commonly  described  himself  as  his  correspondent's  'ever  true  lover '; 
and  Drayton,  writing  to  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  in- 
formed him  that  an  admirer  of  his  literary  work  was  in  love  with  him. 
The  word  '  love  '  was  habitually  applied  to  the  sentiment  subsisting 
between  an  author  and  his  patron.  Nash,  whefi  dedicating  Jack 
Wilton  in  1594  to  Southampton,  calls  him '  a  dear  lover  ...  of  the 
lovers  of  poets  as  of  the  poets  themselves.' 


128  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Lord  of  my  love,  to  whom  in  vassalage 

Thy  merit  hath  my  duty  strongly  knit, 

To  thee  I  send  this  written  ambassage, 

To  witness  duty,  not  to  show  my  wit : 

Duty  so  great,  which  wit  so  poor  as  mine 

May  make  seem  bare,  in  wanting  words  to  show  it, 

But  that  I  hope  some  good  conceit  of  thine 

In  thy  soul's  thought,  all  naked,  will  bestow  it; 

Till  whatsoever  star  that  guides  my  moving, 

Points  on  me  graciously  with  fair  aspect, 

And  puts  apparel  on  my  tatter'd  loving 

To  show  me  worthy  of  thy  sweet  respect; 

Then  may  I  dare  to  boast  how  I  do  love  thee; 

Till  then  not  show  my  head  where  thou  may'st  prove  me.^ 

The  '  Lucrece '  epistle's  intimation  that  the 
patron's  love  alone  gives  value  to  the  poet's  'un- 
tutored lines '  is  repeated  in  Sonnet  xxxii.,  which 
doubtless  reflected  a  moment  of  depression : 

If  thou  survive  my  well-contented  day, 
When  that  churl  Death  my  bones  with  dust  shall  cover, 
And  shalt  by  fortune  once  more  re-survey 
These  poor  rude  lines  of  thy  deceased  lover, 
Compare  them  with  the  bettering  of  the  time. 
And  though  they  be  outstripp'd  by  every  pen. 
Reserve  them  for  my  love,  not  for  their  rhyme. 
Exceeded  by  the  height  of  happier  men. 

^  There  is  little  doubt  that  this  sonnet  was  parodied  by  Sir  John 
Davies  in  the  ninth  and  last  of  his  '  gulling '  sonnets,  in  which  he 
ridicules  the  notion  that  a  man  of  wit  should  put  his  wit  in  vassalage 
to  any  one. 

To  love  my  lord  I  do  knight's  service  owe, 

And  therefore  now  he  hath  my  wit  in  ward  ; 

But  while  it  [/>.  the  poet's  wit]  is  in  his  tuition  so 

Methinks  he  doth  intreat  [i.e.  treat]  it  passing  hard  .  .  . 

But  why  should  love  after  minority 

(When  1  have  passed  the  one  and  twentieth  year) 

Preclude  my  wit  of  his  sweet  liberty, 

And  make  "it  still  the  yoke  of  wardship  bear  ? 

I  fear  he  [i.e.  my  lord]  hath  another  title  [i.e.  right  to  my  wit]  got 

And  holds  my  wit  now  for  an  idiot. 


PATRONAGE  OF  THE   EARL   OF   SOUTHAMPTON      1 29 

O,  then  vouchsafe  me  but  this  loving  thought : 
'  Had  my  friend's  jMuse  grown  with  this  growing  age 
A  dearer  birth  than  this  his  love  had  brought, 
To  march  in  ranks  of  better  equipage;  ^ 
But  since  he  died  and  poets  better  prove, 
Theirs  for  their  style  I'll  read,  his  for  his  love.' 

A  like  vein  is  pursued  in  greater  exaltation  of  spirit 
in  Sonnet  xxxviii.  : 

How  can  my  Muse  want  subject  to  invent, 

While  thou  dost  breathe,  that  pour'st  into  my  verse 

Thine  own  sweet  argument,  too  excellent 

For  every  vulgar  paper  to  rehearse? 

O  give  thyself  the  thanks,  if  aught  in  me 

Worthy  perusal  stand  against  thy  sight; 

For  who's  so  dumb  that  cannot  write  to  thee, 

When  thou  thyself  dost  give  invention  light? 

Be  thou  the  tenth  Muse,  ten  times  more  in  worth 

Than  those  old  nine  which  rhymers  invocate; 

And  he  that  calls  on  thee,  let  him  bring  forth 

Eternal  numbers  to  outlive  long  date. 

If  my  slight  Muse  do  please  these  curious  days. 
The  pain  be  mine,  but  thine  shall  be  the  praise. 

The  central  conceit  here  so  finely  developed  —  that 
the  patron  may  claim  as  his  own  handiwork  the 
protege's  verse  because  he  inspires  it  —  belongs  to  the 
most  conventional  schemes  of  dedicatory  adulation. 
When  Daniel,  in  1592,  inscribed  his  volume  of  sonnets 

1  Mr.  Tyler  assigns  this  sonnet  to  the  year  1598  or  later,  on  the 
fallacious  ground  that  this  line  was  probably  imitated  from  an  ex- 
pression in  Marston's  Pigmalioit' s  Image,  published  in  1598,  where 
'  stanzas '  are  said  to  '  march  rich  bedight  in  warlike  equipage.'  The 
suggestion  of  plagiarism  is  quite  gratuitous.  The  phrase  was  common 
in  Elizabethan  literature  long  before  Marston  employed  it.  Nash,  in 
his  preface  to  Green's  Menaphon,  which  was  published  in  1589,  wrote 
that  the  works  of  the  poet  Watson  '  march  in  equipage  of  honour  with 
any  of  your  ancient  poets.' 


130  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

entitled  '  Delia '  to  the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  he 
played  in  the  prefatory  sonnet  on  the  same  note,  and 
used  in  the  concluding  couplet  almost  the  same  words 
as  Shakespeare.     Daniel  wrote  : 

Great  patroness  of  these  my  humble  rhymes, 

Which  thou  from  out  thy  greatness  dost  inspire  .... 

O  leave  {_i.e.  cease]  not  still  to  grace  thy  work  in  me  .... 

Whereof  the  travail  I  may  challenge  mine, 

But  yet  the  glory,  madam,  must  be  thine. 

Elsewhere  in  the  Sonnets  we  hear  fainter  echoes 
of  the  '  Lucrece '  epistle.  Repeatedly  does  the  son- 
netteer  renew  the  assurance  given  there  that  his  patron 
is  '  part  of  all '  he  has  or  is.  Frequently  do  we  meet 
in  the  Sonnets  with  such  expressions  as  these : 

[I]  by  a  pari  of  all  your  glory  live  (xxxvii.  12) ; 
Thou  art  all  the  better  part  of  vie  (xxxix.  2); 

My  spirit  is  thine,  the  better  part  of  me  (Ixxiv.  8); 

while  '  the  love  without  end '  which  Shakespeare  had 
vowed  to  Southampton  in  the  light  of  day  reappears 
in  sonnets  addressed  to  the  youth  as  '  eternal  love ' 
(cviii.  9),  and  a  devotion  '  what  shall  have  no  end ' 
(ex.  9). 

The  identification  of  the  rival  poets  whose  'richly 
compiled  '  '  comments  '  of  his  patron's  '  praise  '  ex- 
cited Shakespeare's  jealousy  is  a  more  difficult 
inquiry  than  the  identification  of  the  patron.  The 
rival  poets  with  'their  precious  phrase  of  all  the 
Muses  filed '  (Ixxxv.  4)  must  be  sought  among 
Rivals  in  the  Writers  who  eulogised  Southampton  and 
Southamp-  ^^^  knowu  to  have  shared  his  patronage, 
favour.  The  field  of  choice  is  not  small.  Southampton 
from  boyhood  cultivated  literature  and  the  society  of 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON      131 

literary  men.  In  1594  no  nobleman  received  so 
abundant  a  measure  of  adulation  from  the  con- 
temporary world  of  letters.^  Thomas  Nash  justly 
described  the  Earl,  when  dedicating  to  him  his 
'  Life  of  Jack  Wilton  '  in  1594,  as  'a  dear  lover  and 
cherisher  as  well  of  the  lovers  of  poets  as  of  the 
poets  themselves.'  Nash  addressed  to  him  many 
affectionately  phrased  sonnets.  The  prolific  sonnet- 
teer  Barnabe  Barnes  and  the  miscellaneous  literary 
practitioner  Gervase  Markham  confessed,  respectively 
in  1593  and  1595,  yearnings  for  Southampton's  counte- 
nance in  sonnets  which  glow  hardly  less  ardently 
than  Shakespeare's  with  admiration  for  his  personal 
charm.  Similarly  John  Florio,  the  Earl's  Italian  tutor, 
who  is  traditionally  reckoned  among  Shakespeare's 
literary  acquaintances,^  wrote  to  Southampton  in 
1598,  in  his  dedicatory  epistle  before  his  'World  of 
Words '  (an  Italian-English  dictionary),  '  as  to  me 
and  many  more,  the  glorious  and  gracious  sunshine 
of  your  honour  hath  infused  light  and  life.' 

Shakespeare  magnanimously  and  modestly  de- 
scribed that/;v/^V/ of  Southampton,  whom  he  deemed 
a  specially  dangerous  rival,  as  an  '  able  '  and  a  '  better ' 
'  spirit,'  '  a  worthier  pen,'  a  vessel  'of  tall  building  and 
of  goodly  pride,'  compared  with  whom  he  was  himself 
'a  worthless  boat.'  He  detected  a  touch  of  magic  in 
the  man's  writing.  His  'spirit,'  Shakespeare  hyperboli- 
cally  declared,  had  been  '  by  spirits  taught  to  write 

^  See  Appendix  iv.  for  a  full  account  of  Southampton's  relations 
with  Nash  and  other  men  of  letters. 
2  See  p.  85,  note. 


132  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

above  a  mortal  pitch,'  and  '  an  affable  familiar  ghost* 
Shake-  nightly  gulled  him  with  intelligence.  Shake- 
speare's        spcare's  dismav  at  the   fascination  exerted 

fear  of  . 

a  rival  on  his  patron  by  '  the  proud  full  sail  of  his 

poet.  [rival's]  great  verse '  sealed  for  a  time,  he 

declared,  the  springs  of  his  own  invention  (Ixxxvi.). 

There  is  no  need  to  insist  too  curiously  on  the 
justice  of  Shakespeare's  laudation  of  'the  other 
poet's  '  powers.  He  was  presumably  a  new-comer  in 
the  literary  field  who  surprised  older  men  of  benevo- 
lent tendency  into  admiration  by  his  promise  rather 
than  by  his  achievement.  '  Eloquence  and  courtesy,' 
wrote  Gabriel  Harvey  at  the  time, '  are  ever  bountiful  in 
the  amplifying  vein ; '  and  writers  of  amiability,  Harvey 
adds,  habitually  blazoned  the  perfections  that  they 
hoped  to  see  their  young  friends  achieve,  in  language 
implying  that  they  had  already  achieved  them.  All 
the  conditions  of  the  problem  are  satisfied  by  the 
rival's  identification  with  the  young  poet  and  scholar 
Barnabe  Barnes,  a  poetic  panegyrist  of  Southampton 
and  a  prolific  sonnetteer,  who  was  deemed  by  con- 
temporary critics  certain  to  prove  a  great  poet.  His 
first  collection  of  sonnets,  '  Parthenophil  and  Parthe- 
nophe,'  with  many  odes  and  madrigals  interspersed, 
was  printed  in  1593  ;  and  his  second,  'A  Centurie  of 
Spiritual  Sonnets,'  in  1595.  Loud  applause  greeted 
the  first  book,  which  included  numerous  adaptations 
from  the  classical,  Italian,  and  French  poets,  and  dis- 
closed, among  many  crudities,  some  fascinating  lyrics 
and  at  least  one  almost  perfect  sonnet  (No.  l.xvi., 
'  Ah,    sweet   content,   where   is  thy   sweet  abode  ? ') 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE   EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON      1 33 

Thomas  Churchyard  called  Barnes '  Petrarch's  scholar ' ; 
the  learned  Gabriel  Harvey  bade  him  'go  forward  in 
maturity  as  he  had  begun  in  pregnancy,'  and  'be  the 
gallant  poet,  like  Spenser; '  Campion  judged  his  verse 
Barnabe  to  be  'heady  and  strong.'  In  a  sonnet  that 
probably  Bamcs  addrcsscd  in  this  earliest  volume 
the  rival,  to  the  '  virtuous  '  Earl  of  Southampton  he 
declared  that  his  patron's  eyes  were  'the  heavenly 
lamps  that  give  the  Muses  light,'  and  that  his  sole 
ambition  was  '  by  flight  to  rise  '  to  a  height  worthy 
of  his  patron's  'virtues.'  Shakespeare  sorrowfully 
pointed   out  in  Sonnet   Ixxviii.    that    his   lord's  eyes 

Had  taught  the  dumb  on  high  to  sing, 
And  heavy  ignorance  aloft  to  fly, 
Had  added  feathers  to  the  learned's  wing, 
And  given  grace  a  double  majesty  ; 

while  in  the  following  sonnet  he  asserted  that  the 
'  worthier  pen '  of  his  dreaded  rival  when  lending  his 
patron  'virtue'  was  guilty  of  plagiarism,  for  he  'stole 
that  word'  from  his  patron's  'behaviour.'  The  em- 
phasis laid  by  Barnes  on  the  inspiration  that  he  sought 
from  Southampton's  '  gracious  eyes  '  on  the  one  hand, 
and  his  reiterated  references  to  his  patron's  'virtue'  on 
the  other,  suggest  that  Shakespeare  in  these  sonnets 
directly  alluded  to  Barnes  as  his  chief  competitor  in 
the  hotly  contested  race  for  Southampton's  favours. 
In  Sonnet  Ixxxv.  Shakespeare  delares  that  '  he  cries 
Amen  to  every  hymn  that  able  spirit  \_Lc\  his  rival] 
affords.'  Very  few  poets  of  the  day  in  England  fol- 
lowed Ronsard's  practice  of  bestowing  the  title  of  hymn 
on    miscellaneous    poems,  but    Barnes  twice  applies 


134  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

the  word  to  his  poems  of  love.^  When,  too,  Shake- 
speare in  Sonnet  Ixxx.  employs  nautical  metaphors  to 
indicate  the  relations  of  himself  and  his  rival  with 
his  patron  — - 

My  saucy  bark  inferior  far  to  his  .  .  . 

Your  shallowest  help  will  hold  me  up  afloat,  — 

he  seems  to  write  with  an  eye  on  Barnes's  identical 
choice  of  metaphor : 

My  fancy's  ship  tossed  here  and  there  by  these  [sc.  sorrow's  floods] 

Still  floats  in  danger  ranging  to  and  fro. 

How  fears  my  thoughts'  swift  pinnace  thine  hard  rock  !  2 

Gervase  Markham  is  equally  emphatic  in  his 
sonnet  to  Southampton  on  the  potent  influence  of 
Other  his  patron's   '  eyes,'  which,  he  says,  crown 

theories  as  '  j-^g  niost  victorious  pen  '  —  a  possible  refer- 
to  the  f^i      1  -NT      1  > 

rival's  cucc  to  Shakespeare.     JNash  s  poetic  praises 

identity.  Qf  ^]^g  'Ea.rl  are  no  less  enthusiastic,  and  are 
of  a  finer  literary  temper  than  Markham's.  But 
Shakespeare's  description  of  his  rival's  literary  work 
fits  far  less  closely  the  verse  of  Markham  and  Nash 
than  the  verse  of  their  fellow-aspirant  Barnes. 

Many  critics  argue  that  the  numbing  fear  of  his 
rival's  genius  and  of  its  influence  on  his  patron  to 
which  Shakespeare  confessed  in  the  sonnets  was 
more  likely  to  be  evoked  by  the  work  of  George 
Chapman  than  by  that  of  any  other  contemporary 
poet.  But  Chapman  had  produced  no  conspicuously 
'great  verse  '  till  he  began  his  translation  of  Homer  in 
1 598  ;  and  although  he  appended  in  16 10  to  a  complete 

^Cf.  Parthenophil,  Madrigal  i.  line  12;   Sonnet  xvii.  line  9. 
"^  Parihenophil,  Sonnet  xci. 


PAIROXAGE   OF  THE   EARL   OF   SOUTHAMPTON      135 

edition  of  his  translation  a  sonnet  to  Southampton, 
it  was  couched  in  the  coldest  terms  of  formality,  and 
it  was  one  of  a  series  of  sixteen  sonnets  each  addressed 
to  a  distinguished  nobleman  with  whom  the  writer 
implies  that  he  had  no  previous  relations.^    Drayton, 

1  Much  irrelevance  has  been  introduced  into  the  discussion  of 
Chapman's  claim  to  be  the  rival  poet.  Professor  Minto  in  his  Charac- 
teristics of  English  Poets,  p.  291,  argued  that  Chapman  was  the  man 
mainly  because  Shakespeare  declared  his  competitor  to  be  taught  to 
write  by  '  spirits  '  —  'his  compeers  by  night '  —  as  well  as  by  '  an  affable 
familiar  ghost '  which  gulled  him  with  intelligence  at  night  (Ixxxvi.  5 
seq. ).  Professor  Minto  saw  in  these  phrases  allusions  to  some  remarks  by 
Chapman  in  his  Shadoius  of  Night  (1594),  a  poem  on  Night.  There 
Chapman  warned  authors  in  one  passage  that  the  spirit  of  literature 
will  often  withhold  itself  from  them  unless  it  have  '  drops  of  their 
blood  like  a  heavenly  familiar,'  and  in  another  place  sportively  invited 
'  nimble  and  aspiring  wits'  to  join  him  in  consecrating  their  endeavours 
to  'sacred  night.'  There  is  really  no  connection  between  Shakespeare's 
theory  of  the  supernatural  and  nocturnal  sources  of  his  rival's  influence 
with  Chapman's  trite  allusion  to  the  current  faith  in  the  power  of 
'  nightly  familiars '  over  men's  minds  and  lives,  or  in  Chapman's  invita- 
tion to  his  literary  comrades  to  honour  Night  with  him.  It  is  superero- 
gatory to  assume  that  Shakespeare  had  Chapman's  phrases  in  his  mind 
when  alluding  to  superstitions  which  were  universally  acknowledged. 
It  could  be  as  easily  argued  on  like  grounds  that  Shakespeare  was 
drawing  on  other  authors.  Nash  in  his  prose  tract  called  independently 
The  Terrors  of  the  Alight,  which  was  also  printed  in  1594,  described 
the  nocturnal  habits  of  '  famihars '  more  explicitly  than  Chapman. 
The  publisher  Thomas  Thorpe,  in  dedicating  in  1600  Marlowe's  trans- 
lation of  Lucan  (bk.  i.)  to  his  friend  Edward  Blount,  humorously 
referred  to  the  same  topic  when  he  reminded  Blount  that  '  this  spirit 
[^i.e.  Marlowe],  whose  ghost  or  genius  is  to  be  seen  walk  the  Churchyard 
[of  St.  Paul's]  in  at  the  least  three  or  four  sheets  .  .  .  was  sometime 
■s  familiar  of  your  own.'  On  the  strength  of  these  quotations,  and 
accepting  Professor  Minto's  line  of  argument,  Nash,  Thorpe,  or  Blount, 
whose  '  familiar '  is  declared  to  have  been  no  less  a  personage  than 
Marlowe,  has  as  good  a  claim  as  Chapman  to  be  the  rival  poet  of 
Shakespeare's  sonnets.  A  second  and  equally  impotent  argument  in 
Chapman's  favour  has  been  suggested.     Chapman  in  his  preface  to  hig 


136  WILLIAM   SHAKESrEARE 

Ben  Jonson,  and  Marston  have  also  been  identified 
by  various  critics  with  '  the  rival  poet,'  but  none  of 
these  shared  Southampton's  bounty,  nor  are  the 
terms  which  Shakespeare  applies  to  his  rival's  verr^e 
specially  applicable  to  the  productions  of  any  of  them. 
Many  besides  the  '  dedicatory  '  sonnets  are  ad- 
dressed to  a  handsome  youth  of  wealth  and  rank,  for 
whom  the  poet  avows  '  love,'  in  the  Elizabethan  sense 
of  friendship.^  Although  no  specific  reference  is  made 
outside  the  twenty  '  dedicatory '  sonnets  to  the  youth 
Sonnets  of  3-8  a  literary  patron,  and  the  clues  to  his 
friendship,  identity  are  elsewhere  vaguer,  there  is  good 
ground  for  the  conclusion  that  the  sonnets  of  dis- 
interested love  or  friendship  also  have  Southampton 
for  their  subject.  The  sincerity  of  the  poet's  senti- 
ment is  often  open  to  doubt  in  these  poems,  but  they 
seem  to  illustrate  a  real  intimacy  subsisting  between 
Shakespeare  and  a  young  Maecenas. 

translation  of  the  Iliads  ( 161 1)  denounces  without  mentioning  any  name 
'a  certain  envious  windsucker  that  hovers  up  and  down,  laboriously 
engrossing  all  the  air  with  his  luxurious  ambition,  and  buzzing  into 
every  ear  my  detraction'  It  is  suggested  that  Chapman  here  retaliated 
on  Shakespeare  for  his  references  to  him  as  his  rival  in  the  sonnets;  but  it 
is  out  of  the  question  that  Chapman,  were  he  the  rival,  should  have 
termed  those  high  compliments  'detraction.'  There  is  no  ground  for 
identifying  Chapman's  '  windsucker '  with  Shakespeare  (cf.  Wyndham, 
p.  255).  The  strongest  point  in  favour  of  the  theory  of  Chapman's 
identity  with  the  rival  poet  lies  in  the  fact  that  each  of  the  two  sections 
of  his  poem  The  Shadow  of  the  Night  (1594)  is  styled  a  'hymn,'  and 
Shakespeare  in  Sonnet  Ixxxv.  6-7  credits  his  rival  with  writing 
'hymns.'  But  Drayton,  in  his  Harnionie  of  Ike  Church,  1 591,  and 
Barnes,  as  we  have  just  seen,  both  wrote  '  hymns,'  and  the  word  was 
often  loosely  used  in  Elizabethan  English,  as  in  sixteenth-century  French, 
in  the  general  sense  of  '  poem.' 
1  See  p.  127,  note  i. 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE   EARL   OF   SOUTHAMPTON      1 37 

Extravagant  compliment — 'gross  painting*  Shake- 
speare calls  it  —  was  more  conspicuous  in  the  inter- 
course of  patron  and  client  during  the  last  years  of 
Elizabeth's  reign  than  in  any  other  epoch.  For  this 
result  the  sovereign  herself  was  in  part  responsible. 
Contem_porary  schemes  of  literary  compliment  seemed 
infected  by  the  feigned  accents  of  amorous  passion 
and  false  rhapsodies  on  her  physical  beauty  with 
which  men  of  letters  servilely  sought  to  satisfy 
the  old    Queen's    incurable   greed   of   flattery.^     Sir 

1  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  was  wont  to  apostrophise  his  aged  sovereign 

thus: 

Oh,  hopeful  love,  my  object  and  invention. 

Oh,  true  desire,  the  spur  of  my  conceit, 
Oh,  worthiest  spirit,  my  mind's  impulsion, 

Oh,  eyes  transparent,  my  affection's  bait; 
Oh,  princely  form,  my  fancy's  adamant, 

Divine  conceit,  my  pain's  acceptance, 
Oh,  all  in  one!  Oh,  heaven  on  earth  transparent! 

The  seat  of  joy  and  love's  abundance! 

(Cf.  Cynthia,  a  fragment  in  Poems  of  Raleigh,  ed.  Hannah,  p.  33.) 
When  Ralegh  leaves  Elizabeth's  presence  he  tells  us  his  '  forsaken 
heart '  and  his  '  withered  mind  '  were  *  widowed  of  all  the  joys '  they 
'  once  possessed.'  Only  some  500  lines  (the  twenty-first  book  and  a 
fragment  of  another  book)  survive  of  Ralegh's  poem  Cynthia,  the  whole 
of  which  was  designed  to  prove  his  loyalty  to  the  Queen,  and  all  the 
extant  lines  are  in  the  same  vein  as  those  I  quote.  The  complete 
poem  extended  to  twenty-two  books,  and  the  lines  exceeded  10,000,  or 
five  times  as  many  as  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  Richard  Barnheld 
in  his  like-named  poem  of  Cynthia,  1595,  and  Fulke  Greville  in  sonnets 
addressed  to  Cynthia,  also  extravagantly  described  the  Queen's  beauty 
and  graces.  In  1599  Sir  John  Davies,  poet  and  lawyer,  apostrophised 
Elizabeth,  who  was  then  sixty-six  years  old,  thus : 

Fair  soul,  since  to  the  fairest  body  knit 

You  give  such  lively  life,  such  quickening  power. 

Such  sweet  celestial  influences  to  it 

As  keeps  it  still  in  youth's  immortal  flower  .  .  . 

O  many,  many  years  may  you  remain 

A  happy  angel  to  this  happy  land  {^'osce  Teipstim,  dedication). 

Davies  published  in  the  same  year  twenty-six  '  Hymnes  of  Astrea '  on 


138  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Philip  Sidney  described  with  admirable  point  the 
adulatory  excesses  to  which  less  exalted  patrons  were 
habituated  by  literary  dependents.  He  gave  the 
warning  that  as  soon  as  a  man  showed  interest  in 
poetry  or  its  producers,  poets  straightway  pronounced 
him  'to  be  most  fair,  most  rich,  most  wise,  most  all.' 
'  You  shall  dwell  upon  superlatives  .  .  .  Your  soule 
shall  be  placed  with  Dante's  Beatrice.'  ^  The  warmth 
of  colouring  which  distinguishes  many  of  the  sonnets 
Extrava-  that  Shakcspcare,  under  the  guise  of  dis- 
gancesof      interested  friendship,  addressed  to  the  youth 

literary  ,  .  . 

compii-  can  be  matched  at  nearly  all  pomts  in  the 
ment.  adulatiou  that  patrons  were  in  the  habit  of 

receiving  from  literary  dependents  in  the  style  that 
Sidney  described.^ 

Elizabeth's  beauty  and  graces  ;  each  poem  forms  an  acrostic  on  the 
words  '  EHzabetha  Regina,'  and  the  language  of  love  is  simulated  on 
almost  every  page. 

1  Apologie  for  Poetrie  (1595),  ed.  Shuckburgh,  p.  62. 

^  Adulatory  sonnets  to  patrons  are  met  with  in  the  preliminary  or 
concluding  pages  of  numerous  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  books 
{e.g.  the  collection  of  sonnets  addressed  to  James  VI  of  Scotland  in  his 
Essay  es  of  a  Preiitise,  1591,  and  the  sonnets  to  noblemen  before  Spenser's 
Faerie  Queen,  at  the  end  of  Chapman's  Iliad,  and  at  the  end  of  John 
Davies's  Alicrocosmos,  1603).  Other  sonnets  to  patrons  are  scattered 
through  collections  of  occasional  poems  such  as  Ben  Jonson's  Forest 
and  Underwoods  and  Donne's  Poems.  Sonnets  addressed  to  men  are 
not  only  found  in  the  preliminary  pages  but  are  occasionally  interpolated 
in  sonnet-sequences  of  fictitious  love.  Sonnet  xi.  in  Drayton's  sonnet- 
fiction  called  'Idea'  (in  1599  edition)  seems  addressed  to  a  man,  in  much 
the  same  manner  as  Shakespeare  often  addressed  his  hero  ;  and  a  few 
others  of  Drayton's  sonnets  are  ambiguous  as  to  the  sex  of  their  subject. 
John  Soothern's  eccentric  collection  of  love-sonnets,  Pandora  (1584), 
has  sonnets  dedicatory  to  the  Earl  of  Oxford  ;  and  William  Smith  in 
his  Chloris  (1596)  (a  sonnet-fiction  of  the  conventional  kind)  in  two 
prefatory  sonnets  and  in  No.  xlix.  of  the  substantive  collection  invokes 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON       1 39 

Shakespeare  assured  his  friend  that  he  should 
never  grow  old  (civ.),  that  the  finest  types  of  beauty 
Patrons       ^nd   chivalry    in    mediaeval    romance   lived 

habitiiallv  ..,.,..,  ,  j.  ,  . 

addressed  agam  m  him  (cvi.),  that  absence  from  hnn 
in  affec-       ^yg^g  misery,  and  that  his  affection  for  him  was 

tionate 

terms.  Unalterable.    Hundreds  of  poets  openly  gave 

the  affectionate  notice  of  Edmund  Spenser.  Throughout  Europe 
'  dedicatory '  sonnets  or  poems  to  women  betray  identical  charac- 
teristics to  those  that  were  addressed  to  men.  The  poetic  addresses 
to  the  Countess  of  Bedford  and  other  noble  patronesses  of  Donne, 
Ben  Jonson,  and  their  colleagues  are  always  affectionate,  often 
amorous,  in  their  phraseology,  and  akin  in  temper  to  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  of  friendship.  Nicholas  Breton,  in  his  poem  The  Pilgrimage 
to  Paradise  coyned  with  the  Countess  of  Pe/nbroke' s  Love,  1592,  and 
another  work  of  his,  The  Countess  of  Pembroke's  Passion  (first  printed 
from  manuscript  in  1867),  pays  the  Countess,  who  was  merely  his 
literary  patroness,  an  homage  which  is  indistinguishable  from  the 
ecstatic  utterances  of  a  genuine  and  overmastering  passion.  The  differ- 
ence in  the  sex  of  the  persons  addressed  by  Breton  and  by  Shakespeare 
seems  to  place  their  poems  in  different  categories,  Ijut  they  both  really 
belonged  to  the  same  class.  They  both  merely  display  a  protegees 
loyalty  to  his  patron,  couched,  according  to  current  convention,  in  the 
strongest  possible  terms  of  personal  affection.  In  Italy  and  France 
exactly  the  same  vocabulary  of  adoration  was  applied  by  authors  indif- 
ferently to  patrons  and  patronesses.  It  is  known  that  one  series  of 
Michael  Angelo's  impassioned  sonnets  was  addressed  to  a  young  noble- 
man Tommaso  dei  Cavalieri,  and  another  series  to  a  noble  patroness 
Vittoria  Colonna,  but  the  tone  is  the  same  in  both,  and  internal  evidence 
fails  to  enable  the  critic  to  distinguish  between  the  two  series.  Only 
one  English  contemporary  of  Shakespeare  published  a  long  series  of 
sonnets  addressed  to  a  man  who  does  not  prove  on  investigation  to  have 
been  a  professional  patron.  In  1595  Richard  Barnfield  appended  to 
his  poem  Cynthia  a  set  of  twenty  sonnets,  in  which  he  fcignedly 
avowed  affection  for  a  youth  called  Ganymede.  These  poems  do  not 
belong  to  the  same  category  as  Shakespeare's,  but  to  the  category 
of  sonnet-sequences  of  love  in  which  it  was  customary  to  invoke  a 
fictitious  mistress.  Barnfield  explained  that  in  his  sonnets  he  attempted 
a  variation  on  the  conventional  practice  by  fancifully  adapting  to  the 
sonnet-form  the  second  of  Virgil's  Eclogues,  in  which  the  shepherd 
Coridon  apostrophises  the  shephcril-boy  Alexis. 


I40  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

the  like  assurances  to  their  patrons.  Southampton 
was  only  one  of  a  crowd  of  Maecenases  whose  pane- 
gyrists, writing  without  concealment  in  their  own 
names,  credited  them  with  every  perfection  of  mind 
and  body,  and  '  placed  them,'  in  Sidney's  apt  phrase, 
'with  Dante's  "  Beatrice."  ' 

Illustrations  of  the  practice  abound.  Matthew 
Roydon  wrote  of  his  patron.  Sir  Philip  Sidney : 

His  personage  seemed  most  divine, 
A  thousand  graces  one  might  count 
Upon  his  lovely  cheerful  eyne. 
To  heare  him  speak  and  sweetly  smile 
You  were  in  Paradise  the  while. 

Edmund  Spenser  in  a  fine  sonnet  told  his  patron. 
Admiral  Lord  Charles  Howard,  that  '  his  good  per- 
sonage and  noble  deeds  '  made  him  the  pattern  to 
the  present  age  of  the  old  heroes  of  whom  '  the  antique 
poets '  were  '  wont  so  much  to  sing.'  This  compli- 
ment, which  Shakespeare  turns  to  splendid  account  in 
Sonnet  cvi.,  recurs  constantly  in  contemporary  sonnets 
of  adulation.^  Ben  Jonson  apostrophised  the  Earl  of 
Desmond  as  'my  best-best  lov'd.'  Campion  told  Lord 
Walden,  the  Earl  of  Suffolk's  undistinguished  heir, 
that  although  his  muse  sought  to  express  his  love, 
*  the  admired  virtues '  of  the  patron's  youth 

Bred  such  despairing  to  his  daunted  Muse 
That  it  could  scarcely  utter  naked  truth.^ 

1  Cf.  Sonnet  lix  : 

Show  me  your  image  in  some  antique  book  .  .  . 

O  sure  I  am  the  wits  of  former  days 

To  subjects  worse  have  given  admiring  praise. 

2  Campion's  Poems,  ed.  BuUen,  pp.  148  seq.  Cf.  Shakespeare's 
sonnets : 

O  how  I  faint  when  I  of  you  do  write. —  (Ixxx.  i.) 
Finding  thy  worth  a  limit  past  my  praise.  —  (Ixxxii.  6.) 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE    EARL   OF   SOUTHAMPTON       I41 

Dr.  John  Donne  includes  among  his  '  Verse  Letters ' 
to  patrons  and  patronesses  several  sonnets  of  similar 
temper,  one  of  which,  acknowledging  a  letter  of  news 
from  a  patron  abroad,  concludes  thus  : 

And  now  thy  alms  is  given,  thy  letter's  read, 
The  body  risen  again,  the  which  was  dead. 
And  thy  poor  starveling  bountifully  fed. 
After  this  banquet  my  soul  doth  say  grace, 
And  praise  thee  for  it  and  zealously  embrace 
Thy  love,  though  I  think  thy  love  in  this  case 
To  be  as  gluttons',  which  say  'midst  their  meat 
They  love  that  best  of  which  they  most  do  eat.^ 

The  tone  of  yearning  for  a  man's  affection  is 
sounded  by  Donne  and  Campion  almost  as  plaintively 
in  their  sonnets  to  patrons  as  it  was  sounded  by 
Shakespeare.  There  is  nothing,  therefore,  in  the 
vocabulary  of  affection  which  Shakespeare  employed 
in  his  sonnets  of  friendship  to  conflict  with  the  the- 
ory that  they  were  inscribed  to  a  literary  patron  with 
whom  his  intimacy  was  of  the  kind  normally  sub- 
sisting at  the  time  between  literary  clients  and  their 
patrons. 

We  know  Shakespeare  had  only  one  literary  pa- 
tron, the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  the  view  that  that 
nobleman  is  the  hero  of  the  sonnets  of  '  friendship  '  is 
strongly  corroborated  by  such  definite  details  as  can 
be  deduced  from  the  vague  eulogies  in  those  poems 
of  the  youth's  gifts  and  graces.  Every  compliment,  in 
fact,  paid  by  Shakespeare  to  the  youth,  whether  it  be 

1  Donne's  Poems    (in   Muses'    Library),   ii.   34.     See   also  Donne's 
sonnets  and  verse-letters  to  Mr.  Rowland  Woodward  and  Mr.  L  W. 


142  WILLIAM    SliAKKSPEARE 

vaguely  or  definitely  phrased,  applies  to  Southampton 
without  the  least  straining  of  the  words.     In  real  life 
Direct         bcauty,  birth,  wealth,  and  wit  sat  *  crowned 
toSout^-^     in    the    Earl,    whom    poets    acclaimed    the 
ampton  in    haudsomcst    of    Elizabethan    courtiers,    as 

the  sonnets        i    •    i  •       ,  i         i  r    ,  i  .  > 

of  friend-      plamly  as  in  the  hero  of  the  poets  verse, 
ship.  Southampton    has    left    in    his    correspon- 

dence ample  proofs  of  his  literary  learning  and  taste, 
and,  like  the  hero  of  the  sonnets,  was  *  as  fair  in 
knowledge  as  in  hue.'  The  opening  sequence  of 
seventeen  sonnets,  in  which  a  youth  of  rank  and 
wealth  is  admonished  to  marry  and  beget  a  son  so 
that  '  his  fair  house  '  may  not  fall  into  decay,  can  only 
have  been  addressed  to  a  young  peer  like  Southamp- 
ton, who  was  as  yet  unmarried,  had  vast  possessions, 
and  was  the  sole  male  representative  of  his  family. 
The  sonnetteer's  exclamation,  '  You  had  a  father,  let 
your  son  say  so,'  had  pertinence  to  Southampton  at 
any  period  between  his  father's  death  in  his  boyhood 
and  the  close  of  his  bachelorhood  in  1598.  To 
no  other  peer  of  the  day  are  the  words  exactly 
applicable.  The  'lascivious  comment '  on  his  '  wanton 
sport '  which  pursues  the  young  friend  through  the 
sonnets,  and  is  so  adroitly  contrived  as  to  add  point 
to  the  picture  of  his  fascinating  youth  and  beauty, 
obviously  associates  itself  with  the  reputation  for  sen- 
sual indulgence  that  Southampton  acquired  both  at 
Court,  and,  according  to  Nash,  among  men  of  letters.^ 
There  is  no  force  in  the  objection  that  the 
young  man  of  the  sonnets  of  '  friendship  '  must  have 
been  another  than  Southampton  because  the  terms 

1  See  p.  3S6,  note. 


PATRONAGE   OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON      143 

in  which  he  is  often  addressed  imply  extreme  youth. 
In  1594,  a  date  to  which  I  refer  most  of  the  sonnets, 
His  youth-  Southampton  was  barely  twenty-one,  and 
fulness.  i\]Q  young  man  had  obviously  reached 
manhood.  In  Sonnet  civ.  Shakespeare  notes 
that  the  first  meeting  between  him  and  his  friend 
took  place  three  years  before  that  poem  was  written, 
so  that,  if  the  words  are  to  be  taken  literally,  the 
poet  may  have  at  times  embodied  reminiscences  of 
Southampton  when  he  was  only  seventeen  or  eighteen. ^ 
But  Shakespeare,  already  worn  in  worldly  experience, 
passed  his  thirtieth  birthday  in  1594,  and  he  proba- 
bly tended,  when  on  the  threshold  of  middle  life,  to 
exaggerate  the  youthfulness  of  the  nobleman  almost 
ten  years  his  junior,  who  even  later  impressed  his 
acquaintances  by  his  boyish  appearance  and  disposi- 
tion.^ *  Young '  was  the  epithet  invariably  applied 
to  Southampton  by  all  who  knew  anything  of  him 
even  when  he  was  twenty-eight.  In  1601  Sir 
Robert  Cecil  referred  to  him  as  the  '  poor  young 
Earl.' 

But  the  most  striking  evidence  of  the  identity  of  the 

1  Three  years  was  the  conventional  period  which  sonnetteers 
allotted  to  the  development  of  their  passion.  Cf.  Ronsard,  Sonnets 
pour  Helene  (No.  xiv.),  beginning:  'Trois  ans  sont  ja  passez  que  ton 
ocil  me  tient  pris.' 

-  Octavius  Cresar  at  thirty-two  is  described  by  Mark  Antony  after 
the  battle  of  Actium  as  the  '  boy  Qesar  '  who  '  wears  the  rose  of  youth  ' 
(^Antony  and  Cleopatra,  ni.  ii.  17  seq.).  Spenser  in  his  Astrophel 
apostrophises  Sir  Philip  Sidney  on  his  death  near  the  close  of  his 
thirty-second  year  as  'oh  wretched  boy'  (1.  133)  and  'luckless  boy' 
(1.  142).  Conversely  it  was  a  recognised  convention  among  son- 
netteers to  exaggerate  their  own  age.     See  p.  86,  note. 


144  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

youth  of  the  sonnets  of  '  friendship  '  with  Southamp- 
rr.  ton  is  found  in  the  likeness  of  feature  and 

The  evi- 
dence of  complexion  which  characterises  the  poet's 
por  rai  s.  description  of  the  youth's  outward  appear- 
ance and  the  extant  pictures  of  Southampton  as  a 
young  man.  Shakespeare's  many  references  to  his 
youth's  'painted  counterfeit'  (xvi.,  xxiv.,  xlvii., 
Ixvii.)  suggest  that  his  hero  often  sat  for  his  portrait. 
Southampton's  countenance  survives  in  probably 
more  canvases  than  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
At  least  fourteen  extant  portraits  have  been  identified 
on  good  authority  —  nine  paintings,  three  miniatures 
(two  by  Peter  Oliver  and  one  by  Isaac  Oliver),  and  two 
contemporary   prints.^      Most   of    these,    it   is   true, 

1  Two  portraits,  representing  the  Earl  in  early  manhood,  are  at  Wel- 
beck  Abbey,  and  are  described  above.  Of  the  remaining  seven  paint- 
ings, two  are  assigned  to  Van  Somer,  and  represent  the  Earl  in  early 
middle  age ;  one,  a  half-length,  a  very  charming  picture,  now  belongs  to 
James  Knowles,  Esq.,  of  Queen  Anne's  Lodge;  the  other,  a  full- 
length  in  drab  doublet  and  hose,  is  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial  Gal- 
lery at  Stratford-on-Avon.  Mireveldt  twice  painted  the  Earl  at  a  later 
period  of  his  career;  one  of  the  pictures  is  now  at  Woburn  Abbey,  the 
property  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  the  other  is  at  the  National  Por- 
trait Gallery.  A  fifth  picture,  assigned  to  Mytens,  belongs  to  Viscount 
Powerscourt;  a  sixth,  by  an  unknown  artist,  belongs  to  Mr.  Wingfield 
Digby,  and  the  seventh  (in  armour)  is  in  the  Master's  Lodge  at  St.  John's 
College,  Cambridge,  where  Southampton  was  educated.  The  miniature 
by  Isaac  Oliver,  which  also  represents  Southampton  in  late  life,  was 
formerly  in  Dr.  Lumsden  Propert's  collection.  It  now  belongs  to  a 
collector  at  Hamburg.  The  two  miniatures  assigned  to  Peter  Oliver 
belong  respectively  to  Mr.  Jeffery  Whitehead  and  Sir  Francis  Cook, 
Bart.  (Cf.  Catalogue  of  Exhibition  of  Portrait  Miniatures  at  the  Bur- 
lington Fine  Arts  Club,  London,  1889,  pp.  32,  71,  100.)  In  all  the  best 
preserved  of  these  portraits  the  eyes  are  blue  and  the  hair  a  dark  shade 
of  auburn.  Among  the  middle-life  portraits  Southampton  appears  to 
best  advantage  in  the  one  by  Van  Somer  belonging  to  Mr.  James  Knowles. 


PATRONAGE  OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON      145 

portray  their  subject  in  middle  age,  when  the  roses 
of  youth  had  faded,  and  they  contribute  nothing  to  the 
present  argument.  But  the  two  portraits  that  are 
now  at  Welbeck,  the  property  of  the  Duke  of  Port- 
land, give  all  the  information  that  can  be  desired  of 
Southampton's  aspect  'in  his  youthful  morn.'  ^  One 
of  these  pictures  represents  the  Earl  at  twenty-one,  and 
the  other  at  twenty-five  or  twenty-six.  The  earlier 
portrait,  which  is  reproduced  on  the  opposite  page, 
shows  a  young  man  resplendently  attired.  His  doublet 
is  of  white  satin  ;  a  broad  collar,  edged  with  lace,  half 
covers  a  pointed  gorget  of  red  leather,  embroidered 
with  silver  thread  ;  the  white  trunks  and  knee-breeches 
are  laced  with  gold ;  the  sword-belt,  embroidered  in 
red  and  gold,  is  decorated  at  intervals  with  white  silk 
bows ;  the  hilt  of  the  rapier  is  overlaid  with  gold ; 
purple  garters,  embroidered  in  silver  thread,  fasten  the 
white  stockings  below  the  knee.  Light  body  armour, 
richly  damascened,  lies  on  the  ground  to  the  right  of 
the  figure ;  and  a  white-plumed  helmet  stands  to  the 
left  on  a  table  covered  with  a  cloth  of  purple  velvet 
embroidered  in  gold.  Such  gorgeous  raiment  suggests 
that  its  wearer  bestowed  much  attention  on  his  per- 
sonal equipment.  But  the  head  is  more  interesting 
than  the  body.  The  eyes  are  blue,  the  cheeks  pink, 
the  complexion  clear,  and  the  expression  sedate ; 
rings  are  in  the  ears  ;  beard  and  moustache  are  at  an 
incipient  stage,  and  are  of  the  same  bright  auburn 
hue  as  the  hair  in  a  picture  of  Southampton's  mother 

1  I  describe  these  pictures  from  a  personal  inspection  of  them  which 
the  Duke  kindly  permitted  me  to  make. 

L 


146  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

that  is  also  at  Welbeck.^  But,  however  scanty  is  the 
down  on  the  youth's  cheek,  the  hair  on  his  head  is 
luxuriant.  It  is  worn  very  long,  and  falls  over  and 
below  the  shoulder.  The  colour  is  now  of  walnut, 
but  was  originally  of  lighter  tint. 

The  portrait  depicting  Southampton  five  or  six 
years  later  shows  him  in  prison,  to  which  he  was 
committed  after  his  secret  marriage  in  1598.  A  cat 
and  a  book  in  a  jewelled  binding  are  on  a  desk  at 
his  right  hand.  Here  the  hair  falls  over  both  his 
shoulders  in  even  greater  profusion,  and  is  distinctly 
blonde.  The  beard  and  thin  upturned  moustache 
are  of  brighter  auburn  and  fuller  than  before, 
although  still  slight.  The  blue  eyes  and  colouring 
of  the  cheeks  show  signs  of  ill-health,  but  differ  little 
from  those  features  in  the  earlier  portrait. 

From  either  of  the  two  Welbeck  portraits  of 
Southampton  might  Shakespeare  have  drawn  his 
picture  of  the  youth  in  the  Sonnets.  Many  times 
does  he  tell  us  that  the  youth  is  fair  in  complexion, 
and  that  his  eyes  are  fair.  In  Sonnet  Ixviii.,  when 
he  points  to  the  youth's  face  as  a  map  of  what  beauty 
was  '  without  all  ornament,  itself  and  true  '  —  before 
fashion  sanctioned  the  use  of  artificial  '  golden 
tresses' — there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  had  in  mind 
the  wealth  of  locks  that  fell  about  Southampton's  neck.^ 

^  Cf.  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  iii. : 

Thou  art  thy  mother's  glass,  and  she  in  thee 
Calls  back  the  lovely  April  of  her  prime. 

2  Southampton's  singularly  long  hair  procured  him  at  times  un- 
welcome attentions.  When,  in  January  1598,  he  struck  Ambrose 
Willoughby,  an  esquire    of  the   body,  for  asking   him   to   break   oif, 


PATRONAGE  OF  THE   EARL   OF  SOUTHAMPTON      I47 

A  few  only  of  the  sonnets  that  Shakespeare 
addressed  to  the  youth  can  be  allotted  to  a  date  sub- 
sequent to  1594;  only  two  bear  on  the  surface  signs 
of  a  later  composition.  In  Sonnet  Ixx.  the  poet  no 
longer  credits  his  hero  with  juvenile  wantonness, 
but  with  a  '  pure,  unstained  prime,'  which  has  '  passed 
Sonnet  by  the  ambush  of  young  days.'  Sonnet 
last  oftiie  cvii.,  apparently  the  last  of  the  series,  was 
series.  penned  almost  a  decade  after  the  mass  of 

its  companions,  for  it  makes  references  that  cannot 
be  mistaken  to  three  events  that  took  place  in  1603  —  to 
Queen  Elizabeth's  death,  to  the  accession  of  James  I, 
and  to  the  release  of  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  who 
had  been  in  prison  since  he  was  convicted  in  1601 
of  complicity  in  the  rebellion  of  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
The  first  two  events  are  thus  described : 

The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured 
And  the  sad  augurs  mock  their  own  presage; 
Incertainties  now  crown  themselves  assured 
And  peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless  age. 

It  is  in  almost  identical  phrase  that  every  pen  in 
the  spring  of  1603  was  felicitating  the  nation  on 
Allusion  to  ^^^  unexpected  turn  of  events,  by  which 
Elizabeth's  Elizabeth's  crown  had  passed,  without 
civil  war,  to  the  Scottish  King,  and  thus 
the  revolution  that  had  been  foretold  as  the  inevitable 

owing  to  the  lateness  of  the  hour,  a  game  of  primero  that  he  was 
playing  in  the  royal  chamber  at  Whitehall,  the  esquire  Willoughby 
is  stated  to  have  retaliated  by  'pulling  off  some  of  the  Earl's 
locks.'  On  the  incident  being  reported  to  the  Queen,  she  '  gave 
Willoughbv,  in  the  presence,  thanks  for  what  he  did '  {^Sydney  Papers, 
ii.  83). 


148  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

consequence  of  l^^lizabeth's  demise  was  happily  averted. 
Cynthia  {i.e.  the  moon)  was  the  Queen's  recognised 
poetic  appellation.  It  is  thus  that  she  figures  in  the 
verse  of  Barnfield,  Spenser,  Fulke  Greville,  and 
Ralegh,  and  her  elegists  involuntarily  followed  the 
same  fashion.     '  Fair  Cynthia's  dead  '  sang  one. 

Luna's  extinct  ;   and  now  beholde  the  sunne 
Whose  beames  soake  up  the  moysture  of  all  teares, 

wrote  Henry  Petowe,  in  his  '  A  Fewe  Aprill  Drops 
Showered  on  the  Hearse  of  Dead  Eliza,'  1603. 
There  was  hardly  a  verse-writer  who  mourned  her  loss 
that  did  not  typify  it,  moreover,  as  the  eclipse  of  a 
heavenly  body.  One  poet  asserted  that  death  '  veiled 
her  glory  in  a  cloud  of  night.'  Another  argued: 
'  Naught  can  eclipse  her  light,  but  that  her  star  will 
shine  in, darkest  night.'  A  third  varied  the  formula 
thus : 

WTien  winter  had  cast  off  her  weed 
Our  sun  eclipsed  did  set.     Oh  !  light  most  fair.^ 

At  the  same  time  James  was  constantly  said  to  have 
entered  on  his  inheritance  '  not  with  an  olive  branch 
in  his  hand,  but  with  a  whole  forest  of  olives  round 
about  him,  for  he  brought  not  peace  to  this  kingdom 
alone  '  but  to  all  Europe.^ 

'The  drops  of  this  most  balmy  time,'  in  this  same 
sonnet,  cvii.,  is  an  echo  of  another  current  strain  of 
fancy.  James  came  to  England  in  a  springtide  of 
rarely  rivalled  clemency,  which  was  reckoned  of  the 

1  These  quotations  are  from  Sorrowes  Joy,  a  collection  of  elegies  on 
Queen  Elizabeth  by  Cambridge  writers  (Cambridge,  1603),  and  from 
Chettle's  England'' s  Mourning  Garment  (London,  1603). 

-  Gervase  Markham's  Honour  in  her  Perfection,  1624. 


PATRONAGE  OF  THE   EARL  OF   SOUTHAMPTON      149 

happiest  augury.  'All  things  look  fresh,'  one  poet 
sang,  '  to  greet  his  excellence.'  '  The  air,  the  seasons, 
Allusions  and  the  earth '  were  represented  as  in  sym- 
Lmp°on'l'  pathy  with  the  general  joy  in  'this  sweetest 
release         gf  ^\\  swcet  Springs.'     One  source  of  grief 

from  1  &  t> 

prison.  alouc  was  acknowledged  :  Southampton  was 
still  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower,  '  supposed  as  forfeit 
to  a  confined  doom.'  All  men,  wrote  Manningham, 
the  diarist,  on  the  day  following  the  Queen's  death, 
wished  him  at  liberty.^  The  wish  was  fulfilled  quickly. 
On  April  10,  1603,  his  prison  gates  were  opened  by 
'  a  warrant  from  the  king.'  So  bountiful  a  beginning 
of  the  new  era,  wrote  John  Chamberlain  to  Dudley 
Carleton  two  days  later,  '  raised  all  men's  spirits, 
.  .  .  and  the  very  poets  with  their  idle  pamphlets 
promised  themselves  '  great  things.^  Samuel  Daniel 
and  John  Davies  celebrated  Southampton's  release 
in  buoyant  verse.^  It  is  improbable  that  Shake- 
speare remained  silent.  '  My  love  looks  fresh,'  he 
wrote,  in  the  concluding  lines  of  Sonnet  cvii.,  and 
he  repeated  the  conventional  promise  that  he  had 
so  often  made  before,  that  his  friend  should  live  in 
his  '  poor  rhyme,'  '  when  tyrants'  crests  and  tombs 
of  brass  are  spent.'  It  is  impossible  to  resist  the 
inference  that  Shakespeare  thus  saluted  his  patron 
on  the  close  of  his  days  of  tribulation.  Shakespeare's 
genius  had  then  won  for  him  a  public  reputation  that 
rendered  him   independent  of  any   private   patron's 

^  Manningham's  Diary,  Camden  See,  p.  148. 
2  Court  and  Times  of  James  I,  I.  i.  7. 
*  See  Appendix  iv. 


150  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

favour,  and  he  made  no  further  reference  in  his 
writings  to  the  patronage  that  Southampton  had 
extended  to  him  in  earlier  years.  But  the  terms  in 
which  he  greeted  his  former  protector  for  the  last 
time  in  verse,  justify  the  belief  that,  during  his 
remaining  thirteen  years  of  life,  the  poet  cultivated 
friendly  relations  with  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and 
was  mindful  to  the  last  of  the  encouragement  that 
the  young  peer  offered  him  while  he  was  still  on  the 
threshold  of  the  temple  of  fame. 


STORY  OF   INTRIGUE   IN  THE   SONNETS  151 


X 


THE   SUPPOSED   STORY  OF  INTRIGUE  IN  THE 
SONNETS 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  doubt  that  had  Shakespeare, 
who  was  more  prolific  in  invention  than  any  other 
poet,  poured  out  in  his  sonnets  his  personal 
passions  and  emotions,  he  would  have  been  carried 
by  his  imagination,  at  every  stage,  far  beyond  the 
beaten  tracks  of  the  conventional  sonnetteers  of  his 
day.  The  imitative  element  in  his  sonnets  is  large 
enough  to  refute  the  assertion  that  in  them  as  a 
whole  he  sought  to  '  unlock  his  heart.'  It  is  likely 
enough  that  beneath  all  the  conventional  adulation 
bestowed*  by  Shakespeare  on  Southampton  there 
lay  a  genuine  affection,  but  his  sonnets  to  the  Earl 
were  no  involuntary  ebullitions  of  a  devoted  and 
disinterested  friendship  ;  they  were  celebrations  of  a 
patron's  favour  in  the  terminology  —  often  raised  by 
Shakespeare's  genius  to  the  loftiest  heights  of  poe- 
try —  that  was  invariably  consecrated  to  such  a  pur- 
pose by  a  current  literary  convention.  Very  few  of 
Shakespeare's  '  sugared  sonnets '  have  a  substantial 
right  to  be  regarded  as  untutored  cries  of  the  soul. 
It  is  true  that  the  sonnets  in  which  the  writer  re- 
proaches himself  with  sin,  or  gives  expression  to  a 


152  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

sense  of  melancholy,  offer  at  times  a  convincing 
illusion  of  autobiographic  confessions ;  and  it  is 
just  possible  that  they  stand  apart  from  the  rest, 
and  reveal  the  writer's  inner  consciousness,  in  which 
case  they  are  not  to  be  matched  in  any  other  of 
Shakespeare's  literary  compositions.  But  they 
may  be,  on  the  other  hand,  merely  literary  medita- 
tions, conceived  by  the  greatest  of  dramatists,  on 
infirmities  incident  to  all  human  nature,  and  only 
attempted  after  the  cue  had  been  given  by  rival 
sonnetteers.  At  any  rate,  their  energetic  lines  are 
often  adapted  from  the  less  forcible  and  less  coherent 
utterances  of  contemporary  poets,  and  the  themes 
are  common  to  almost  all  Elizabethan  collections  of 
sonnets.^  Shakespeare's  noble  sonnet  on  the  ravages 
of  lust  (cxxix.),  for  example,  treats  with  marvellous 
force  and  insight  a  stereotyped  theme  of  sonnetteers, 

^  The  fine  exordium  of  Sonnet  cxix. : 

What  potions  have  I  drunk  of  Siren  tears, 
Distill'd  from  limbecks  foul  as  hell  within, 

adopts  expressions  in  Barnes's  vituperative  sonnet  (No.  xlix.),  where, 

after    denouncing    his    mistress    as   a    '  siren,'    the    poet    incoherently 

ejaculates : 

From  my  love's  limbeck  [so.  have  I]  still  [di]stilled  tears! 

Almost  every  note  in  the  scale  of  sadness  or  self-reproach  is  sounded 
from  time  to  time  in  Petrarch's  sonnets.  Tasso  in  Scelta  delle  Rime, 
15S2,  part  ii.  p.  26,  has  a  sonnet  (beginning  '  Vinca  fortuna  homai,  se 
sotto  il  peso  ')  which  adumbrates  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  xxix.  ('  When 
in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes')  and  Ixvi.  (' Tired  with  all 
these,  for  restful  death  I  cry').  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  trans- 
lated Tasso's  sonnet  in  his  sonnet  (part  i.  No.  xxxiii.) ;  while  Drum- 
mond's  Sonnets  xxv.  ('  What  cruel  star  into  this  world  was  brought ') 
and  xxxii.  ('  If  crost  with  all  mishaps  be  my  poor  life ')  are  pitched  in 
the  identical  key. 


STORY   OF   INTRIGUE   IN  THE   SONNETS  1 53 

and  it  may  have  owed  its  whole  existence  to  Sir 
PhiHp  Sidney's  sonnet  on  '  Desire.'  ^ 

Only  in  one  group,  composed  of  six  sonnets  scat- 
tered through  the  collection,  is  there  traceable  a 
strand  of  wholly  original  sentiment,  not  to  be  readily 
defined,  and  boldly  projecting  from  the  web  into 
which  it  is  wrought.  This  series  of  six  sonnets  deals 
with  a  love  adventure  of  no  normal  type.  Sonnet 
cxliv.  opens  with  the  lines  : 

Two  loves  I  have  of  comfort  and  despair 

Which  like  two  angels  do  suggest  {i.e.  tempt)  me  still: 

The  better  angel  is  a  man  right  fair, 

The  worser  spirit  a  woman  colour'd  ill.^ 

The  woman,  the  sonnetteer  continues,  has  corrupted 
the  man  and  has  drawn  him  from  his  '  side.'  Five 
The  other   sonnets   treat  the  same  theme.      In 

youth's  ,  -  ,  .  .  /IT  1 

relations  three  addrcsscd  to  the  man  (xl.,  xli.,  and 
with  the  x\\i.)  the  poet  mildly  reproaches  his  youthful 
mistress.  friend  for  having  sought  and  w^on  the  favours 
of  a  woman  whom  he  himself  loved  '  dearly,'  but  the 
trespass  is  forgiven  on  account  of  the  friend's  youth  and 

1  Sidney's  Certaifi  Sonnets  (No.  xiii.)  appended  to  Astrophel  and 
Stella  in  the  edition  of  1 598.  In  Emaricdulfe :  Sonnets  written  by 
E.  C,  1595,  Sonnet  xxxvii.  beginning  'O  lust,  of  sacred  love  the  foul 
corrupter,'  even  more  closely  resembles  Shakespeare's  sonnet  in  both 
ohraseology  and  sentiment.  E.  C.'s  rare  volume  is  reprinted  in  the 
Lamport  Garland  (Roxburghe  Club),  1881. 

-  Even  this  sonnet  is  adapted  from  Drayton.     See  Sonnet  xxii.  in 

1599  edition : 

An  evil  spirit  your  beauty  haunts  me  still  .  .  . 

Thus  am  I  still  provoked  to  every  evil 

By  this  good-wicked  spirit,  sweet  Angel-Devil. 

But  Shakespeare  entirely  alters  the  point  of  the  lines  by  contrasting  the 
inlluence  exerted  on  him  by  the  woman  with  that  exerted  on  him  by  a 
man. 


154  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

beauty.  In  the  two  remaining  sonnets  Shakespeare 
addresses  the  woman  (cxxxiii.  and  cxxxiv.),  and  he 
rebukes  her  for  having  enslaved  not  only  himself  but 
'  his  next  self  '  —  his  friend.  Shakespeare,  in  his 
denunciation  elsewhere  of  a  mistress's  disdain  of  his 
advances,  assigns  her  blindness,  like  all  the  profes- 
sional sonnetteers,  to  no  better  defined  cause  than 
the  perversity  and  depravity  of  womankind.  In  these 
six  sonnets  alone  does  he  categorically  assign  his 
mistress's  alienation  to  the  fascinations  of  a  dear  friend 
or  hint  at  such  a  cause  for  his  mistress's  infidelity. 
The  definite  element  of  intrigue  that  is  developed  here 
is  not  found  anywhere  else  in  the  range  of  Elizabethan 
sonnet-literature.  The  character  of  the  innovation 
and  its  treatment  seem  only  capable  of  explanation  by 
regarding  it  as  a  reflection  of  Shakespeare's  personal 
experience.  But  how  far  he  is  sincere  in  his  accounts 
of  his  sorrow  in  yielding  his  mistress  to  his  friend  in 
order  to  retain  the  friendship  of  the  latter  must  be 
decided  by  each  reader  for  himself.  If  all  the  words 
be  taken  literally,  there  is  disclosed  an  act  of  self- 
sacrifice  that  it  is  difficult  to  parallel  or  explain.  But  it 
remains  very  doubtful  if  the  affair  does  not  rightly  be- 
long to  the  annals  of  gallantry.  The  sonnetteer's  com- 
placent condonation  of  the  young  man's  offence  chiefly 
suggests  the  deference  that  was  essential  to  the  main- 
tenance by  a  dependent  of  peaceful  relations  with  a 
self-willed  and  self-indulgent  patron.  Southampton's 
sportive  and  lascivioustemperament  might  easily  impel 
him  to  divert  to  himself  the  attention  of  an  attractive 
woman  by  whom  he  saw  that  his  poet  was  fascinated, 


STORY   OF   INTRIGUE   IN  THE   SONNETS  1 55 

and  he  was  unlikely  to  tolerate  any  outspoken  protest 
on  the  part  of  Mx^protegi.  There  is  no  clue  to  the  lady's 
identity,  and  speculation  on  the  topic  is  useless.  She 
may  have  given  Shakespeare  hints  for  his  pictures  of 
the  'dark  lady,'  but  he  treats  that  lady's  obduracy 
conventionally,  and  his  vituperation  of  her  sheds  no 
light  on  the  personal  history  of  the  mistress  who  left 
him  for  his  friend. 

The  emotions  roused  in  Shakespeare  by  the  episode, 
even  if  potent  at  the  moment,  were  not  likely  to  be 
deep-seated  or  enduring.  And  it  is  possible  that  a  half- 
jesting  reference,  which  would  deprive  Shakespeare's 
amorous  adventure  of  serious  import,  was  made  to  it 
by  a  literary  comrade  in  a  poem  that  was  licensed  for 
publication  on  September  3,  1594,  and  was  published 
'Wiiiobie  immediately  under  the  title  of  '  Willobie  his 
hisAvisa.'  Avisa,  or  the  True  Picture  of  a  Modest 
Maid  and  of  a  Chaste  and  Constant  Wife.'  ^  In  this 
volume,  which  mainly  consists  of  seventy-two  cantos 
in  varying  numbers  of  six-line  stanzas,  the  chaste 
heroine,  Avisa,  holds  converse  —  in  the  opening  sec- 
tion as  a  maid,  and  in  the  later  section  as  a  wife  — 
with  a  series  of  passionate  adorers.  In  every  case 
she  firmly  repulses  their  advances.  Midway  through 
the  book  its  alleged  author  —  Henry  Willobie  —  is 
introduced  in  his  own  person  as  an  ardent  admirer, 
and  the  last  twenty-nine  of  the  cantos  rehearse  his 
woes  and  Avisa's  obduracy.     To  this  section  there  is 

^  The  work  was  reprinted  by  Dr.  Grosart  in  his  Occasional  Issues, 
1880,  and  extracts  from  it  appear  in  the  New  Shakspere  Society's 
'Allusion  Books,'  i.  169  seq. 


156  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

prefixed  an  argument  in  prose  (canto  xliv.).  It  is  there 
stated  that  Willobie,  '  being  suddenly  affected  with  the 
contagion  of  a  fantastical  wit  at  the  first  sight  of  Avisa, 
pineth  a  while  in  secret  grief.  At  length,  not  able  any- 
longer  to  endure  the  burning  heat  of  so  fervent  a 
humour,  [he]  bewrayeth  the  secrecy  of  his  disease  unto 
his  familiar  friend  W.  S.,  ivho  not  long  before  Jiad  tried 
the  courtesy  of  the  like  passion  and  ivas  Jiow  newly  re- 
covered of  the  like  infeetion.  Yet  [W.  S.],  finding  his 
friend  let  blood  in  the  same  vein,  took  pleasure  for  a 
time  to  see  him  bleed,  and  instead  of  stopping  the  issue, 
he  enlargeth  the  wound  with  the  sharp  razor  of  willing 
conceit,'  encouraging  Willobie  to  believe  that  Avisa 
would  ultimately  yield  'with  pains,  diligence,  and  some 
cost  in  time.'  '  The  miserable  comforter  '  [W.  S.],  the 
passage  continues,  was  moved  to  comfort  his  friend 
'  with  an  impossibility,'  for  one  of  two  reasons.  Either 
he  'now  would  secretly  laugh  at  his  friend's  folly' 
because  he  '  had  given  occasion  not  long  before  unto 
others  to  laugh  at  his  own.'  Or  '  he  would  see  whether 
another  could  play  his  part  better  than  himself,  and, 
in  viewing  after  the  course  of  this  loving  comedy,' 
would  '  see  whether  it  would  sort  to  a  happier  end 
for  this  new  actor  than  it  did  for  the  old  actor.  But 
at  length  this  comedy  was  like  to  have  grown  to 
a  tragedy  by  the  weak  and  feeble  estate  that  H.  W. 
was  brought  unto,'  owing  to  Avisa's  unflinching 
rectitude.  Happily,  '  time  and  necessity  '  effected  a 
cure.  In  two  succeeding  cantos  in  verse  W.  S.  is  in- 
troduced in  dialogue  with  Willobie,  and  he  gives  him, 
in   oratio   recta,   light-hearted  and  mocking  counsel 


STORY  OF   INTRIGUE   IX  THE   SONNETS  1 57 

which  Willobie  accepts  with  results  disastrous  to  his 
mental  health. 

Identity  of  initials,  on  which  the  theory  of  Shake- 
speare's identity  with  H.  W.'s  unfeeling  adviser  mainly 
rests,  is  not  a  strong  foundation,^  and  doubt  is  justi- 
fiable as  to  whether  the  story  of  '  Avisa  '  and  her  lovers 
is  not  fictitious.  In  a  preface  signed  Hadrian  Dorell, 
the  writer,  after  mentioning  that  the  alleged  author 
(WUlobie)  was  abroad,  discusses  somewhat  enigmati- 
cally whether  or  no  the  work  is  '  a  poetical  fiction.'  In 
a  new  edition  of  1 596  the  same  editor  decides  the  ques- 
tion in  the  affirmative.  But  Dorell,  while  making  this 
admission,  leaves  untouched  the  curious  episode  of 
*  W.  S.'  The  mention  of  '  W.  S.'  as  '  the  old  actor,'  and 
the  employment  of  theatrical  imagery  in  discussing 
his  relations  with  Willobie,  must  be  coupled  with  the 
fact  that  Shakespeare,  at  a  date  when  mentions  of 
him  in  print  were  rare,  was  eulogised  by  name  as  the 
author  of  '  Lucrece '  in  some  prefatory  verses  to  the 
volume.  From  such  considerations  the  theory  of 
'W.  S.'s '  identity  with  Willobie's  acquaintance  ac- 
quires substance.  If  we  assume  that  it  was  Shake- 
speare who  took  a  roguish  delight  in  watching  his 
friend  Willobie  suffer  the  disdain  of  '  chaste  Avisa ' 
because  he  had  '  newly  recovered '  from  the  effects  of 

^  W.  S.  are  common  initials,  and  at  least  two  authors  bearing  them 
made  some  reputation  in  Shakespeare's  day.  There  was  a  dramatist 
named  Wentworth  Smith  (see  p.  180,  infra),  and  there  was  a  William 
Smith  who  published  a  volume  of  love-lorn  sonnets  called  Chloris  in 
1595.  A  specious  argument  might  possibly  be  devised  in  favour  of  the 
latter's  identity  with  Willobie's  counsellor.  But  Shakespeare,  of  the 
two,  has  the  better  claim. 


158  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

a  like  experience,  it  is  clear  that  the  theft  of  Shake- 
speare's mistress  by  another  friend  did  not  cause  him 
deep  or  lasting  distress.  The  allusions  that  were 
presumably  made  to  the  episode  by  the  author  of 
'  Avisa '  bring  it,  in  fact,  nearer  the  confines  of  comedy 
than  of  tragedy. 

The  processes  of  construction  which  are  discernible 
in  Shakespeare's  sonnets  are  thus  seen  to  be  identical 
Summary  with  thosc  that  are  discernible  in  the  rest  of 
ofconciu-     i^is  literary  work.     They  present  one  more 

sions  re-  .  .  i     r  ^         ^ 

spectingthe  proot  ot  his  punctilious  regard  tor  the  de- 
sonnets,  mands  of  public  taste,  and  of  his  marvellous 
genius  and  skill  in  adapting  and  transmuting  for  his 
own  purposes  the  labours  of  other  workers  in  the  field 
that  for  the  moment  engaged  his  attention.  Most  of 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  were  produced  in  1594  under 
the  incitement  of  that  freakish  rage  for  sonnetteering 
which,  taking  its  rise  in  Italy  and  sweeping  over  France 
on  its  way  to  England,  absorbed  for  some  half-dozen 
years  in  this  country  a  greater  volume  of  literary 
energy  than  has  been  applied  to  sonnetteering  within 
the  same  space  of  time  here  or  elsewhere  before  or  since. 
The  thousands  of  sonnets  that  were  circulated  in  Eng- 
land between  1591  and  1597  were  of  every  literary 
quality,  from  sublimity  to  inanity,  and  they  illustrated 
in  form  and  topic  every  known  phase  of  sonnetteering 
activity.  Shakespeare's  collection,  which  was  put  to- 
gether at  haphazard  and  published  surreptitiously  many 
years  after  the  poems  were  written,  was  a  medley,  at 
times  reaching  heights  of  literary  excellence  that  none 


STORY   OF   INTRIGUE   IN  THE   SONNETS  1 59 

other  scaled,  but  as  a  whole  reflecting  the  varied  feat- 
ures of  the  sonnetteering  vogue.  Apostrophes  to  meta- 
physical abstractions,  vivid  picturings  of  the  beauties 
of  nature,  adulation  of  a  patron,  idealisation  of  a 
protege's  regard  for  a  nobleman  in  the  figurative  lan- 
guage of  amorous  passion,  amiable  compliments  on  a 
woman's  hair  or  touch  on  the  virginals,  and  vehement 
denunciation  of  the  falseness  and  frailty  of  womankind 
—  all  appear  as  frequently  in  contemporary  collections 
of  sonnets  as  in  Shakespeare's.  He  borrows  very 
many  of  his  competitors'  words  and  thoughts,  but  he  so 
fused  them  with  his  fancy  as  often  to  transfigure  them. 
Genuine  emotion  or  the  writer's  personal  experience 
very  rarely  inspired  the  Elizabethan  sonnet,  and  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  proved  no  exception  to  the  rule.  A 
personal  note  may  have  escaped  him  involuntarily  in 
the  sonnets  in  which  he  gives  voice  to  a  sense  of  melan- 
choly and  self-remorse,  but  his  dramatic  instinct  never 
slept,  and  there  is  no  proof  that  he  is  doing  more  in 
those  sonnets  than  produce  dramatically  the  illusion  of 
a  personal  confession.  Only  in  one  scattered  series  of 
six  sonnets,  where  he  introduced  a  topic,  unknown  to 
other  sonnetteers,  of  a  lover's  supersession  by  his  friend 
in  a  mistress's  graces,  does  he  seem  to  show  indepen- 
dence of  his  comrades  and  draw  directly  on  an  incident 
in  his  own  life,  but  even  there  the  emotion  is  wanting 
in  seriousness.  The  sole  biographical  inference  de- 
ducible  from  the  sonnets  is  that  at  one  time  in  his  career 
Shakespeare  disdained  no  weapon  of  flattery  in  an 
endeavour  to  monopolise  the  bountiful  patronage  of  a 
young  man  of  rank.     External  evidence  agrees  with 


l6o  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

internal  evidence  in  identifying  the  belauded  patron 
with  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  the  real  value  to  a 
biographer  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  is  the  corrobora- 
tion they  offer  of  the  ancient  tradition  that  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  to  whom  his  two  narrative  poems  were 
openly  dedicated,  gave  Shakespeare  at  an  early  period 
of  his  literary  career  help  and  encouragement,  which 
entitles  the  Earl  to  a  place  in  the  poet's  biography 
resembling  that  filled  by  the  Duke  Alfonso  D'Este  in 
the  biography  of  Ariosto,  or  like  that  fifled  by  Margaret, 
duchess  of  Savoy,  in  the  biography  of  Ronsard. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC   POWER      l6l 


XI 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC  POWER 

But,  all  the  while  that  Shakespeare  was  fancifully 
assuring  his  patron 

[How]  to  no  other  pass  my  verses  tend 
Than  of  your  graces  and  your  gifts  to  tell, 

his  dramatic  work  was  steadily  advancing.  To  the 
'Mid-  winter   season   of     1595    probably   belongs 

Ni^hX  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.'  1  The  comedy 
Dream.'  may  wcll  havc  been  written  to  celebrate 
a  marriage  —  perhaps  the  marriage  of  the  universal 
patroness  of  poets,  Lucy  Harington,  to  Edward 
Russell,  third  Earl  of  Bedford,  on  December  12, 
1 594 ;  or  that  of  William  Stanley,  Earl  of  Derby, 
at  Greenwich  on  January  24,  1594-5.  The  elaborate 
compliment  to  the  Queen,  '  a  fair  vestal  throned  by 
the  west'  (11.  i.  157  seq.),  was  at  once  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  past  marks  of  royal  favour  and  an  invitation 
for  their  extension  to  the  future.  Oberon's  fanciful 
description  (11.  ii.  148-68)  of  the  spot  where  he  saw 
the  little  western  flower  called  '  Love-in-idleness  '  that 
he  bids  Puck  fetch  for  him,  has  been  interpreted  as 
a   reminiscence  of   one  of  the  scenic  pageants  with 

1  No  edition  appeared  before  l6oo,  and  then  two  were  published. 
M 


i02  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

which  the  Earl  of  Leicester  entertained  Queen 
Elizabeth  on  her  visit  to  Kenilworth  in  1575.^  The 
whole  play  is  in  the  airiest  and  most  graceful  vein 
of  comedy.  Hints  for  the  story  can  be  traced  to  a 
variety  of  sources  —  to  Chaucer's  'Knight's  Tale,'  to 
Plutarch's  '  Life  of  Theseus,'  to  Ovid's  '  Metamor- 
phoses'  (bk.  iv.),  and  to  the  story  of  Oberon,  the 
fairy-king,  in  the  French  mediaeval  romance  of  '  Huon 
of  Bordeaux,'  of  which  an  English  translation  by 
Lord  Berners  was  first  printed  in  1534.  The  influ- 
ence of  John  Lyly  is  perceptible  in  the  raillery  in 
which  both  mortals  and  immortals  indulge.  In  the 
humorous  presentation  of  the  play  of  '  Pyramus  and 
Thisbe  '  by  the  '  rude  mechanicals  '  of  Athens,  Shake- 
speare improved  upon  a  theme  which  he  had  already 
employed  in  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost.'  But  the  final 
scheme  of  the  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  '  is  of  the 
author's  freshest  invention,  and  by  endowing — prac- 
tically for  the  first  time  in  literature  —  the  phantoms 
of  the  fairy  world  with  a  genuine  and  a  sustained 
dramatic  interest,  Shakespeare  may  be  said  to  have 
conquered  a  new  realm^  for  art. 

More  sombre  topics  engaged  him  in  the  comedy 
of  'All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,'  which  may  be  ten- 
■  All's  tatively  assigned  to    1595.     Meres,  writing 

Well.*  three  years  later,  attributed  to  Shakespeare 

a  piece  called  '  Love's  Labour's  Won.'  This  title, 
which  is  not  otherwise  known,  may  well  be  applied 

1  Oberon' s  Vision,  by  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Ilalpin  (Shakespeare  Society), 
1843.  Two  accounts  of  the  Kenilworth  Jt'tes,  by  George  Gascoigne 
and  Robert  Laneham  respectively,  were  published  in  1576. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DRAMATIC   POWER      1 63 

to  'All's  Well.'  'The  Taming  of  The  Shrew,'  which 
has  also  been  identified  with  '  Love's  Labour's  Won,' 
has  far  slighter  claim  to  the  designation.  The  plot 
of  'All's  Well,'  like  that  of  'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  was 
drawn  from  Painter's  '  Palace  of  Pleasure '  (No. 
xxxviii.).  The  original  source  is  Boccaccio's  '  Deca- 
merone '  (giorn.  iii.  nov.  9).  Shakespeare,  after  his 
wont,  grafted  on  the  touching  story  of  Helena's  love 
for  the  unworthy  Bertram  the  comic  characters  of  the 
braggart  Parolles,  the  pompous  Lafeu,  and  a  clown 
(Lavache)  less  witty  than  his  compeers.  Another 
original  creation,  Bertram's  mother,  Countess  of 
Roussillon,  is  a  charming  portrait  of  old  age.  In 
frequency  of  rhyme  and  other  metrical  characteristics 
the  piece  closely  resembles  '  The  Two  Gentlemen,' 
but  the  characterisation  betrays  far  greater  power, 
and  there  are  fewer  conceits  or  crudities  of  style. 
The  pathetic  element  predominates.  The  heroine 
Helena,  whose  '  pangs  of  despised  love  '  are  expressed 
with  touching  tenderness,  ranks  with  the  greatest  of 
Shakespeare's  female  creations. 

'  The  Taming  of  The  Shrew  '  —  which,  like  '  All's 
Well,'  was  first  printed  in  the  folio  —  was  probably 
composed  soon  after  the  completion  of  that  solemn 
comedy.  It  is  a  revision  of  an  old  play  on  lines 
somewhat  differing  from  those  which  Shakespeare 
,  -paminT  ^^^  followed  previously.  From  '  The 
of  The  Taming  of  A  Shrew,'  a  comedy  first  pub- 
lished in  1594,-^  Shakespeare  drew  the  In- 
duction and  the  scenes  in  which  the  hero  Petruchio 

1  Reprinted  by  the  Shakespeare  Society  in  1844. 


164  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

conquers  Catherine  the  Shrew.  He  first  infused  into 
them  the  genuine  spirit  of  comedy.  But  while  follow- 
ing the  old  play  in  its  general  outlines,  Shakespeare's 
revised  version  added  an  entirely  new  underplot  — 
the  story  of  Bianca  and  her  lovers,  which  owes 
something  to  the  '  Supposes  '  of  George  Gascoigne, 
an  adaptation  of  Ariosto's  comedy  called  '  Gli  Sup- 
positi.'  Evidence  of  style  —  the  liberal  introduction 
of  tags  of  Latin  and  the  exceptional  beat  of  the  dog- 
gerel—  makes  it  difficult  to  allot  the  Bianca  scenes 
to  Shakespeare  ;  those  scenes  were  probably  due  to  a 
coadjutor. 

The  Induction  to  *  The  Taming  of  The  Shrew  '  has 
a  direct  bearing  on  Shakespeare's  biography,  for  the 
poet  admits  into  it  a  number  of  literal  references  to 
Stratford  and  his  native  county.  Such  personalities  are 
rare  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  and  can  only  be  paralleled 
in  two  of  slightly  later  date  —  the  '  Second  Part 
of  Henry  IV '  and  the  '  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.' 
All  these  local  allusions  may  well  be  attributed  to 
such  a  renewal  of  Shakespeare's  personal  relations 
Stratford  with  the  town  as  is  indicated  by  external 
fn't'he'in-  f^cts  in  his  history  of  the  same  period, 
duction.  In  the  Induction  the  tinker,  Christopher 
Sly,  describes  himself  as  '  Old  Sly's  son  of  Burton 
Heath.'  Burton  Heath  is  Barton-on-the-Heath, 
the  home  of  Shakespeare's  aunt,  Edmund  Lambert's 
wife,  and  of  her  sons.  The  tinker  in  like  vein 
confesses  that  he  has  run  up  a  score  with  Marian 
Hacket,  the  fat  alewife  of  Wincot.^     The  references 

1  All  these  details  are  of  Shakespeare's  invention,  and  do  not  figure 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC   POWER      165 

to  Wincot  and  the  Rackets  are  singularly  precise. 
The  name  of  the  maid  of  the  inn  is  given  as  Cicely 
Racket,  and  the  alehouse  is  described  in  the  stage 
direction  as  '  on  a  heath.' 

Wincot   was    the    familiar   designation    of    three 

small  Warwickshire  villages,  and  a  good  claim   has 

been  set  up  on  behalf  of  each  to  be  the  scene  of 

Sly's  drunken  exploits.    There  is  a  very  small  hamlet 

named  Wincot  within  four  miles  of  Stratford, 

Wincot.  .      .  r  .       ,      ^  ,  ,  .    , 

now  consistmg  of  a  smgle  farmhouse  which 
was  once  an  Elizabethan  mansion ;  it  is  situated 
on  what  was  doubtless  in  Shakespeare's  day,  before 
the  land  there  was  enclosed,  an  open  heath.  This 
Wincot  forms  part  of  the  parish  of  Quinton,  where, 
according  to  the  parochial  registers,  a  Racket  family 
resided  in  Shakespeare's  day.  On  November  21, 
1 591,  'Sara  Racket,  the  daughter  of  Robert  Racket,' 
was  baptised  in  Quinton  church.^  Yet  by  Warwick- 
shire contemporaries  the  Wincot  of  'The  Taming  of 
The  Shrew  '  was  unhesitatingly  identified  with  Wilne- 
cote,  near  Tamworth,  on  the  Staffordshire  border  of 
Warwickshire,  at  some  distance  from  Stratford.    That 

in  the  old  play.  But  in  the  crude  induction  in  the  old  play  the  non- 
descript drunkard  is  named  without  prefix  '  Slie.'  That  surname, 
although  it  was  very  common  at  Stratford  and  in  the  neighbourhood, 
was  borne  by  residents  in  many  other  parts  of  the  country,  and  its  ap- 
pearance in  the  old  play  is  not  in  itself,  as  has  been  suggested,  suffi- 
cient to  prove  that  the  old  play  was  written  by  a  Warwickshire  man. 
There  are  no  other  names  or  references  in  the  old  play  that  can  be 
associated  with  Warwickshire. 

1  Mr.  Richard  Savage,  the  secretary  and  librarian  of  the  Birth- 
place Trustees  at  Stratford,  has  generously  placed  at  my  disposal  this 
interesting  fact,  which  he  lately  discovered. 


1 66  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

village,  whose  name  was  pronounced  *  Wincot,'  was 
celebrated  for  its  ale  in  the  seventeenth  century,  a 
distinction  which  is  not  shown  by  contemporary 
evidence  to  have  belonged  to  any  place  of  like  name. 
The  Warwickshire  poet,  Sir  Aston  Cokain,  within 
half  a  century  of  the  production  of  Shakespeare's 
'Taming  of  The  Shrew,'  addressed  to  'Mr.  Clement 
Fisher  of  Wincott '  (a  well-known  resident  at  Wilne- 
cote)  verses  which  begin 

Shakspeare  your  Wincot  ale  hath  much  renowned, 
That  fox'd  a  Beggar  so  (by  chance  was  found 
Sleeping)  that  there  needed  not  many  a  word 
To  make  him  to  believe  he  was  a  Lord. 

In  the  succeeding  lines  the  writer  promises  to  visit 
'  Wincot '  {i.e.  Wilnecote)  to  drink 

Such  ale  as  Shakspeare  fancies 
Did  put  Kit  Sly  into  such  lordly  trances. 

It  is  therefore  probable  that  Shakespeare  con- 
sciously invested  the  home  of  Kit  Sly  and  of  Kit's 
hostess  with  characteristics  of  Wilnecote  as  well  as 
of  the  hamlet  near  Stratford. 

Wilmcote,  the  native  place  of  Shakespeare's 
mother,  is  also  said  to  have  been  popularly  pronounced 
'Wincot.'  A  tradition  which  was  first  recorded  by 
Capell  as  late  as  1780  in  his  notes  to  'The  Taming 
of  The  Shrew  '  (p.  26)  is  to  the  effect  that  Shakespeare 
often  visited  an  inn  at  'Wincot'  to  enjoy  the  society 
of  a  'fool  who  belonged  to  a  neighbouring  mill,'  and 
the  Wincot  of  this  story  is,  we  are  told,  locally  asso- 
ciated with  the  village  of  Wilmcote.     But  the  links 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF  DRAMATIC   POWER      1 67 

that  connect  Shakespeare's  tinker  with  Wilmcote  are 
far  slighter  than  those  which  connect  him  with  Win- 
cot  and  Wilnecote. 

The  mention  of  Kit  Sly's  tavern  comrades  — 

Stephen  Sly  and  old  John  Naps  of  Greece, 
And  Peter  Turf  and  Henry  Pimpernell  — 

was  in  all  likelihood  a  reminiscence  of  contemporary- 
Warwickshire  life  as  literal  as  the  name  of  the 
hamlet  where  the  drunkard  dwelt.  There  was  a 
genuine  Stephen  Sly  who  was  in  the  dramatist's  day 
a  self-assertive  citizen  of  Stratford ;  and  '  Greece,' 
whence  '  old  John  Naps '  derived  his  cognomen,  is  an 
obvious  misreading  of  Greet,  a  hamlet  by  Winchmere 
in  Gloucestershire,  not  far  removed  from  Shake- 
speare's native  town. 

In  1597  Shakespeare  turned  once  more  to  English 
history.  From  Holinshed's  '  Chronicle,'  and  from  a 
valueless  but  very  popular  piece,  '  The 
Famous  Victories  of  Henry  V,'  which  was 
repeatedly  acted  between  1588  and  1595,^  he  worked 
up  with  splendid  energy  two  plays  on  the  reign  of 
Henry  IV.  They  form  one  continuous  whole,  but 
are  known  respectively  as  parts  i.  and  ii.  of  '  Henry 
IV.'  The  '  Second  Part  of  Henry  IV  '  is  almost 
as  rich  as  the  Induction  to  *  The  Taming  of  The 
Shrew '  in  direct  references  to  persons  and  districts 
famihar  to  Shakespeare.  Two  amusing  scenes  pass 
at  the  house  of  Justice  Shallow  in  Gloucestershire, 
a   county   which    touched   the   boundaries    of  Strat- 

1  It  was  licensed  for  publication  in  1594,  and  published  in  1598' 


1 68  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ford  (hi.  ii.  and  v.  i.).  When,  in  the  second  of  these 
scenes,  the  justice's  factotum,  Davy,  asked  his  master 
'to  countenance  William  Visor  of  Woncot^  against 
Clement  Perkes  of  the  Hill,'  the  local  references  are 
unmistakable.  Woodmancote,  where  the  family  of 
Visor  or  Vizard  has  flourished  since  the  sixteenth 
century,  is  still  pronounced  Woncot.  The  adjoining 
Stinchcombe  Hill  (still  familiarly  known  to  natives  as 
'  The  Hill ')  was  in  the  sixteenth  century  the  home  of 
the  family  of  Perkes.  Very  precise  too  are  the  allu- 
sions to  the  region  of  the  Cotswold  Hills,  which  were 
easily  accessible  from  Stratford.  '  Will  Squele,  a 
Cotswold  man,'  is  noticed  as  one  of  Shallow's  friends 
in  youth  (hi.  ii.  23);  and  when  Shallow's  servant  Davy 
receives  his  master's  instructions  to  sow  '  the  head- 
land'  'with  red  wheat,'  in  the  early  autumn,  there  is 
an  obvious  reference  to  the  custom  almost  peculiar 
to  the  Cotswolds  of  sowing  'red  lammas'  wheat  at  an 
unusually  early  season  of  the  agricultural  year.^ 

The  kingly  hero  of  the  two  plays  of  '  Henry  IV ' 
had  figured  as  a  spirited  young  man  in  '  Richard  H  ' ; 
he  was  now  represented  as  weighed  down  by  care 
and  age.  With  him  are  contrasted  (in  part  i.)  his 
impetuous  and  ambitious    subject    Hotspur   and  (in 

1  The  quarto  of  i6oo  reads  Woncote :  all  the  folios  read  Woncot. 
Yet  Malone  in  the  Variorum  of  i§03  introduced  the  new  and  un- 
warranted reading  of  Wincot,  which  has  been  unwisely  adopted  by 
succeeding  editors. 

2  These  references  are  convincingly  explained  by  Mr.  Justice  Mad- 
den in  his  Diary  of  Master  Silence,  pp.  87  seq.,  372-4.  Cf.  Blunt's 
Dtirsley  and  its  N^eighbourhood ;  fluntley's  Glossary  of  the  Cotswold 
Dialect,  and  Marshall's  Rural  Economy  of  Cotswold  ( 1 796) . 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DRAMATIC   POWER       1 69 

both  parts)  his  son  and  heir  Prince  Hal,  whose 
boisterous  disposition  drives  him  from  Court  to  seek 
adventures  among  the  haunters  of  taverns.  Hotspur 
is  a  vivid  and  fascinating  portrait  of  a  hot-headed 
soldier,  courageous  to  the  point  of  rashness,  and 
sacrificing  his  lire  to  his  impetuous  sense  of  honour. 
Prince  Hal,  despite  his  vagaries,  is  endowed  by  the 
dramatist  with  far  more  self-control  and  common 
sense. 

On  the  first,  as  on  every  subsequent,  production  of 
'  Henry  IV  '  the  main  public  interest  was  concentrated 
neither  on  the  King  nor  on  his  son,  nor  on  Hotspur, 
but  on  the  chief  of  Prince  Hal's  riotous  companions. 
At  the  outset  the  propriety  of  that  great  creation 
was  questioned  on  a  political  or  historical  ground  of 
doubtful  relevance.  Shakespeare  in  both  parts  of 
'Henry  IV'  originally  named  the  chief  of  the  prince's 
associates  after  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  a  character  in  the 
old  play.  But  Henry  Brooke,  eighth  Lord  Cobham, 
who  succeeded  to  the  title  early  in  1 597,  and  claimed 
descent  from  the  historical  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  the 
Lollard  leader,  raised  objection;  and  when  the  first 
part  of  the  play  was  printed  by  the  acting-company's 
authority  in  1 598  ( /  newly  corrected  '  in  1 599),  Shake- 
speare bestowed  on  Prince  Hal's  tun-bellied 

Falstaff.  1111  r 

follower  the  new  and  deathless  name  of 
Falstaff.  A  trustworthy  edition  of  the  second  part 
of  '  Henry  IV '  also  appeared  with  Falstaff's  name 
substituted  for  that  of  Oldcastle  in  1600.  There  the 
epilogue  expressly  denied  that  Falstaff  had  any  char- 
acteristic   in    common    with    the    martyr    Oldcastle, 


170  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

'  Oldcastlc  died  a  martyr,  and  this  is  not  the  man.' 
But  the  substitution  of  the  name  '  Falstaff'  did  not  pass 
without  protest.  It  hazily  recalled  Sir  John  Fastolf, 
an    historical   warrior   who    had    already   figured    in 

*  Henry  VI '  and  was  owner  at  one  time  of  the  Boar's 
Head  Tavern  in  Southwark ;  according  to  traditional 
stage  directions/  the  prince  and  his  companions  in 

*  Henry  IV,'  frequent  the  Boar's  Head,  Eastcheap. 
Fuller  in  his  '  Worthies,'  first  published  in  1662,  while 
expressing  satisfaction  that  Shakespeare  had  *  put 
out '  of  the  play  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  was  eloquent 
in  his  avowal  of  regret  that  '  Sir  John  Fastolf '  was 
'  put  in,'  on  the  ground  that  it  was  making  over 
bold  with  a  great  warrior's  memory  to  make  him  a 
'  Thrasonical  puff  and  emblem  of  mock-valour.' 

The  offending  introduction  and  withdrawal  of 
Oldcastle's  name  left  a  curious  mark  on  literary 
history.  Humbler  dramatists  (Munday,  Wilson, 
Drayton,  and  Hathaway),  seeking  to  profit  by  the 
attention  drawn  by  Shakespeare  to  the  historical 
Oldcastle,  produced  a  poor  dramatic  version  of  Old- 
castle's genuine  history;  and  of  two  editions  of  'Sir 
John  Oldcastle'  published  in  1600,  one  printed  for 
T[homas]  P[avier]  was  impudently  described  on  the 
title-page  as  by  Shakespeare. 

But  it  is  not  the  historical  traditions  which  are 
connected  with  Falstaff  that  give  him  his  perennial 
attraction.  It  is  the  personality  that  owes  nothing 
to    history    with    which    Shakespeare's    imaginative 

1  First  adopted  by  Theobald  in  1733;  cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps, 
ii.  257. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC   POWER      171 

power  clothed  him.  The  knight's  unfettered  indul- 
gence in  sensual  pleasures,  his  exuberant  mendacity, 
and  his  love  of  his  own  ease  are  purged  of  offence  by 
his  colossal  wit  and  jollity,  while  the  contrast  between 
his  old  age  and  his  unreverend  way  of  life  supplies 
that  tinge  of  melancholy  which  is  inseparable  from 
the  highest  manifestations  of  humour.  The  Eliza- 
bethan public  recognised  the  triumphant  success  of 
the  effort,  and  many  of  Falstaff's  telling  phrases,  with 
the  names  of  his  foils.  Justices  Shallow  and  Silence, 
at  once  took  root  in  popular  speech.  Shakespeare's 
purely  comic  power  culminated  in  Falstaff ;  he  may 
be  claimed  as  the  most  humorous  figure  in  literature. 
In  all  probability  '  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,' 
a  comedy  inclining  to  farce,  and  unqualified  by 
,^/^^j.j.  any  pathetic  interest,  followed  close  upon 
Wives  of  '  Henry  IV.'  In  the  epilogue  to  the  *  Second 
Windsor.'  p^j.^.  ^^  Hgnry  IV  '  Shakespeare  had  written : 
'  If  you  be  not  too  much  cloyed  with  fat  meat,  our 
humble  author  will  continue  the  story  with  Sir  John 
in  it  .  .  .  where  for  anything  I  know  Falstaff  shall 
die  of  a  sweat,  unless  already  a'  be  killed  with  your  hard 
opinions.'  Rowe  asserts  that  '  Queen  Elizabeth  was 
so  well  pleased  with  that  admirable  character  of  Fal- 
staff in  the  two  parts  of  "Henry  IV"  that  she  com- 
manded him  to  continue  it  for  one  play  more,  and  to 
show  him  in  love.  Dennis,  in  the  dedication  of  '  The 
Comical  Gallant'  (1702),  noted  that  the  'Merry  Wives' 
was  written  at  the  Queen's  'command  and  by  her 
direction ;  and  she  was  so  eager  to  see  it  acted  that 
she  commanded  it  to  be  finished  in  fourteen  days,  and 


173  WILLIAM    SIIAKKSPEARE 

was  afterwards,  as  tradition  tells  us,  very  well  pleased 
with  the  representation.'  In  his  'Letters'  (1721,  p. 
232)  Dennis  reduces  the  period  of  composition  to  ten 
days  —  'a  prodigious  thing,'  added  Gildon,^  '  where  all 
is  so  well  contrived  and  carried  on  without  the  least 
confusion.'  The  localisation  of  the  scene  at  Windsor, 
and  the  complimentary  references  to  Windsor  Castle, 
corroborate  the  tradition  that  the  comedy  was  prepared 
to  meet  a  royal  command.  An  imperfect  draft  of 
the  play  was  printed  by  Thomas  Creede  in  1602;^ 
the  folio  of  1623  first  supplied  a  complete  version. 
The  plot  was  probably  suggested  by  an  Italian  novel. 
A  tale  from  Straparola's  'Notti'  (ii.  2),  of  which  an 
adaptation  figured  in  the  miscellany  of  novels  called 
Tarleton's  '  Newes  out  of  Purgatorie  '  (1590),  another 
Italian  tale  from  the  '  Pecorone '  of  Ser  Giovanni 
Fiorentino  (ii.  2),  and  a  third  romance,  the  Fishwife's 
tale  of  Brainford  in  the  collection  of  stories  called 
'  Westward  for  Smelts,'  ^  supply  incidents  distantly 
resembling  episodes  in  the  play.  Nowhere  has  Shake- 
speare so  vividly  reflected  the  bluff  temper  of  contem- 
porary middle-class  society.  The  presentment  of  the 
buoyant  domestic  life  of  an  Elizabethan  country  town 
bears  distinct  impress  of  Shakespeare's  own  experi- 
ence.    Again,  there  are  literal  references  to  the  neigh- 

1  Remarks,  p.  291. 

2  Cf.  Shakespeare  Society's  reprint,  1842,  ed.  Halliwell. 

^  This  collection  of  stories  is  said  by  both  Malone  and  Steevens 
to  have  been  published  in  1603,  although  no  edition  earlier  than  1620 
is  now  known.  The  1 620  edition  of  IVeslxvard for  Smells,  written  by 
Kinde  Kit  of  Kingston,  was  reprinted  by  the  Percy  Society  in  1848. 
Cf.  Shakespeare'' s  Library,  ed.  Ilazlilt,  I.  ii.  1-80. 


TME   DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC   POWER       1 73 

bourhood  of  Stratford.  Justice  Shallow,  whose  coat- 
of-arms  is  described  as  consisting  of  '  luces,'  is  thereby 
openly  identified  with  Shakespeare's  early  foe,  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote.  When  Shakespeare 
makes  Master  Slender  repeat  the  report  that  Master 
Page's  fallow  greyhound  was  *  outrun  on  Cotsall ' 
(i.  i.  93),  he  testifies  to  his  interest  in  the  coursing 
matches  for  which  the  Cotswold  district  was  famed. 

The  spirited  character  of  Prince  Hal  was  pecu- 
liarly congenial  to  its  creator,  and  in  '  Henry  V ' 
Shakespeare,  during  1598,  brought  his 
career  to  its  close.  The  play  was  performed 
early  in  1599,  probably  in  the  newly  built  Globe 
Theatre.  Again  Thomas  Creede  printed,  in  1600, 
an  imperfect  draft,  which  was  thrice  reissued  before 
a  complete  version  was  supplied  in  the  First  Folio 
of  1623.  The  dramatic  interest  of  'Henry  V"  is 
slender.  There  is  abundance  of  comic  element,  but 
death  has  removed  Falstaff,  whose  last  moments  are 
described  with  the  simple  pathos  that  comes  of  a 
matchless  art,  and,  though  Falstaff's  companions  sur- 
vive, they  are  thin  shadows  of  his  substantial  figure. 
New  comic  characters  are  introduced  in  the  person  of 
three  soldiers  respectively  of  Welsh,  Scottish,  and  Irish 
nationality,  whose  racial  traits  are  contrasted  with 
telling  effect.  The  irascible  Irishman,  Captain  Mac- 
Morris,  is  the  only  representative  of  his  nation  who 
figures  in  the  long  list  of  Shakespeare's  dramatis 
personcs.  The  scene  in  which  the  pedantic  but 
patriotic  Welshman,  Fluellen,  avenges  the  sneers  of 
the    braggart    Pistol    at    his    nation's    emblem,   by 


174  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

forcing  him  to  cat  the  leek,  overflows  in  vivacious 
humour.  The  piece  in  its  main  current  presents  a 
series  of  loosely  connected  episodes  in  which  the  hero's 
manliness  is  displayed  as  soldier,  ruler,  and  lover.  The 
topic  reached  its  climax  in  the  victory  of  the  English 
at  Agincourt,  which  powerfully  appealed  to  patriotic 
sentiment.  Besides  the  '  Famous  Victories,'  ^  there 
was  another  lost  piece  on  the  subject,  which  Henslowe 
produced  for  the  first  time  on  November  28,  1595. 
*  Henry  V '  may  be  regarded  as  Shakespeare's  final 
experiment  in  the  dramatisation  of  English  history, 
and  it  artistically  rounds  off  the  series  of  his  'histories' 
which  form  collectively  a  kind  of  national  epic.  For 
'Henry  VHI,'  which  was  produced  very  late  in  his 
career,  he  was  only  in  part  responsible,  and  that 
'history'  consequently  belongs  to  a  different  category. 
A  glimpse  of  autobiography  may  be  discerned  in 
the  direct  mention  by  Shakespeare  in  '  Henry  V  of  an 
exciting  episode  in  current  history.  In  the  prologue 
to  act  V.  Shakespeare  foretold  for  Robert  Devereux, 
Essex  and  sccoud  Earl  of  Esscx,  the  close  friend  of  his 
lioYof^'  patron  Southampton,  an  enthusiastic  re- 
1601.  ception  by  the  people  of  London  when  he 

should    come    home    after   '  broaching '    rebellion   in 
Ireland. 

Were  now  the  general  of  our  gracious  empress, 
As  in  good  time  he  may,  from  Ireland  coming. 
Bringing  rebellion  broached  on  his  sword. 
How  many  would  the  peaceful  city  quit 
To  welcome  him  !  —  (Act  V.  Chorus,  11.  30-4.) 

Essex  had  set  out  on   his  disastrous   mission  as 

1  Diary,  p.  61 ;    see  p.  167. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF  DRAMATIC   POWER       1 75 

the  would-be  pacificator  of  Ireland  on  March  27,  1599. 
The  fact  that  Southampton  went  with  him  probably 
accounts  for  Shakespeare's  avowal  of  sympathy. 
But  Essex's  effort  failed.  He  was  charged,  soon 
after  '  Henry  V '  was  produced,  with  treasonable 
neglect  of  duty,  and  he  sought  in  1601,  again  with  the 
support  of  Southampton,  to  recover  his  position  by 
stirring  up  rebellion  in  London.  Then  Shakespeare's 
reference  to  Essex's  popularity  with  Londoners  bore 
perilous  fruit.  The  friends  of  the  rebel  leaders  sought 
the  dramatist's  countenance.  They  paid  40s.  to 
Augustine  Phillips,  a  leading  member  of  Shake- 
speare's company,  to  induce  him  to  revive  at  the 
Globe  Theatre  '  Richard  H  '  (beyond  doubt  Shake- 
speare's play),  in  the  hope  that  its  scene  of  the  kill- 
ing of  a  king  might  encourage  a  popular  outbreak. 
Phillips  subsequently  deposed  that  he  prudently  told 
the  conspirators  who  bespoke  the  piece  that  '  that 
play  of  Kyng  Richard  '  was  '  so  old  and  so  long  out 
of  use  as  that  they  should  have  small  or  no  company 
at  it.'  None  the  less  the  performance  took  place  on 
Saturday  (February  7,  1601),  the  day  preceding  that 
fixed  by  Essex  for  the  rising.  The  Queen,  in  a  later 
conversation  with  William  Lambarde  (on  August  4, 
1 601),  complained  that  'this  tragedie'  of  'Richard  II,' 
which  she  had  always  viewed  with  suspicion,  was 
played  at  the  period  with  seditious  intent '  forty  times 
in  open  streets  and  houses.' ^  At  the  trial  of  Essex 
and  his  friends,  Phillips  gave  evidence  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  tragedy  was  revived  at  the 

^  Nichols,  Progresses  of  FJizabcth,  iii.  552. 


1/6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Globe  Theatre.  Essex  was  executed  and  South- 
ampton was  imprisoned  until  the  Queen's  death. 
No  proceedings  were  taken  against  the  players,^  but 
Shakespeare  wisely  abstained,  for  the  time,  from  any 
public  reference  to  the  fate  either  of  Essex  or  of  his 
patron  Southampton. 

Such  incidents  served  to  accentuate  Shakespeare's 
growing  reputation.  For  several  years  his  genius  as 
dramatist  and  poet  had  been  acknowledged  by  critics 
Shake-  ^^cl  playgocrs  alike,  and  his  social  and  pro- 
speare's       fessional  position  had  become  considerable. 

popularitv      ^       .  ,        ,         ,  ,   .     .     „ 

and  influ-  Insidc  the  theatre  his  mnuence  was  supreme, 
ence.  When,  in  1598,  the  manager  of  the  company 

rejected  Ben  Jonson's  first  comedy  —  his  '  Every  Man 
in  his  Humour'  —  Shakespeare  intervened,  accord- 
ing to  a  credible  tradition  (reported  by  Rowe  but 
denounced  by  Gifford),  and  procured  a  reversal  of  the 
decision  in  the  interest  of  the  unknown  dramatist, 
who  was  his  junior  by  nine  years.  He  took  a  part 
when  the  piece  was  performed.  Jonson  was  of  a 
difficult  and  jealous  temper,  and  subsequently  he  gave 
vent  to  an  occasional  expression  of  scorn  at  Shake- 
speare's expense  ;  but,  despite  passing  manifestations 
of  his  unconquerable  surliness,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  Jonson  cherished  genuine  esteem  and  affection 
for  Shakespeare  till  death.^  Within  a  very  few  years 
of  Shakespeare's  death  Sir  Nicholas  L'Estrange,  an 

1  Cf.  Domestic  MSS.  (Elizabeth)  in  the  Public  Record  Office,  vol. 
cclxxviii.  Nos.  78  and  85;  and  Calendar  of  Domestic  State  Papers, 
1598-1601,  pp.  575-8. 

^  CLGWchwrX,  Examination  of  the  charges  .  .  .  0/  Jonson's  Enmity 
ttwards  Shakespeare,  1808, 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DRAMATIC   POWER       1 77 

industrious  collector  of  anecdotes,  put  into  writing  an 
anecdote  for  which  he  made  Dr.  Donne  responsible, 
attesting  the  amicable  relations  that  habitually  sub- 
sisted between  Shakespeare  and  Jonson.  '  Shake- 
speare,' ran  the  story,  'was  godfather  to  one  of  Ben 
Jonson's  children,  and  after  the  christening,  being  in 
a  deep  study,  Jonson  came  to  oheer  him  up  and 
asked  him  why  he  was  so  melancholy.  "  No,  faith, 
Ben,"  says  he,  "  not  I,  but  I  have  been  considering 
a  great  while  what  should  be  the  fittest  gift  for  me  to 
bestow  upon  my  godchild,  and  I  have  resolv'd  at 
last."  "I  prythee,  what  .^  "  says  he.  "T  faith,  Ben, 
I'll  e'en  give  him  a  dozen  good  Lattin  spoons,  and 
thou  shalt  translate  them."  '  ^ 

The  creator  of  Falstaff  could  have  been  no 
stranger  to  tavern  life,  and  he  doubtless  took  part  with 
zest  in  the  convivialities  of  men  of  letters.  Tradition 
The  Mer-  ^eports  that  Shakespeare  joined,  at  the 
maid  meet-  Mermaid  Tavern  in  Bread  Street,  those 
'"^^'  meetings  of  Jonson  and  his  associates  which 

Beaumont  described  in  his  poetical '  Letter  '  to  Jonson  : 

What  things  have  we  seen 
Done  at  the  Mermaid  ?  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life. 

^  Latten  is  a  mixed  metal  resembling  brass.  Pistol  in  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor  (act  i.  scene  i.  1.  165)  likens  Slender  to  a  'Latten 
Bilbo,'  that  is,  a  sword  made  of  the  mixed  metal.  Cf.  Anecdotes  and 
Traditions,  edited  from  L'Estrange's  MSS.  by  W.  J.  Thoms  for  the 
Camden  Society,  p.  2. 

N 


178  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

'  Many  were  the  wit-combats,'  wrote  Fuller  of 
Shakespeare  in  his  'Worthies'  (1662),  'betwixt  him 
and  Ben  Jonson,  which  two  I  behold  like  a  Spanish 
great  galleon  and  an  English  man  of  war ;  Master 
Jonson  (like  the  former)  was  built  far  higher 
in  learning,  solid  but  slow  in  his  performances. 
Shakespear,  with  .the  Englishman  of  war,  lesser  in 
bulk,  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides, 
tack  about,  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds  by  the 
quickness  of  his  wit  and  invention.' 

Of  the  many  testimonies  paid  to  Shakespeare's 
literary  reputation  at  this  period  of  his  career,  the 
Meres'seu-  ruost  Striking  was  that  of  Francis  Meres, 
logy,  1598.  Meres  was  a  learned  graduate  of  Cambridge 
University,  a  divine  and  schoolmaster,  who  brought  out 
in  1 598  a  collection  of  apophthegms  on  morals,  religion, 
and  literature  which  he  entitled  '  Palladis  Tamia.'  In 
the  book  he  interpolated  'A  comparative  discourse  ot 
our  English  poets  with  the  Greek,  Latin,  and  Italian 
poets,'  and  there  exhaustively  surveyed  contemporary 
literary  effort  in  England.  Shakespeare  figured  in 
Meres's  pages  as  the  greatest  man  of  letters  of  the  day. 
'The  Muses  would  speak  Shakespeare's  fine  filed 
phrase,'  Meres  asserted,  'if  they  could  speak  English.' 
'Among  the  English,'  he  declared,  'he  was  the  most 
excellent  in  both  kinds  for  the  stage'  {i.e.  tragedy  and 
comedy).  The  titles  of  six  comedies  ('Two  Gentle- 
men of  Verona,'  '  Errors,'  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost,' 
*  Love's  Labour's  Won,'  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,' 
and  'Merchant  of  Venice')  and  of  six  tragedies 
('Richard    II,'    'Richard    III,'   'Henry   IV,'  'King 


THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  DRAMATIC   POWER       1 79 

John,'  '  Titus,'  and  '  Romeo  and  Juliet  ')  were  enumer- 
ated, and  mention  followed  of  his  'Venus  and  Adonis,' 
his  '  Lucrece,'  and  his  'sugred^  sonnets  among  his 
private  friends.'  These  were  cited  as  proof  '  that  the 
sweet  witty  soul  of  Ovid  lives  in  mellifluous  and 
honey-tongued  Shakespeare.'  In  the  same  year  a 
rival  poet,  Richard  Barnfield,  in  '  Poems  in  Divers 
Humours,'  predicted  immortality  for  Shakespeare 
with  no  less  confidence. 

And  Shakespeare,  thou  whose  honey-flowing  vein 
(Pleasing  the  world)  thy  Praises  doth  obtain, 
Whose  Venus  and  whose  Lucrece  (sweet  and  chaste) 
Thy  name  in  Fame's  immortal  Book  have  placed. 
Live  ever  you,  at  least  in  fame  live  ever : 
Well  may  the  Body  die,  but  Fame  dies  never. 

Shakespeare's  name  was  thenceforth  of  value  to 
unprincipled  publishers,  and  they  sought  to  palm  off 
on  their  customers  as  his  work  the  productions  of 
inferior  pens.  Already,  in  1595,  Thomas  Creede, 
Value  of  ^^  surreptitious  printer  of  'Henry  V  and 
his  name  to  the  'Merry  Wives,'  had  issued  the  crude 
pu  isieis.  <  fj-aggfjjg  Qf  Locrine,'  as  'newly  set  foorth 
overseene  and  corrected  by  W.  S.'  It  appropriated 
many  passages  from  an  older  piece  called  '  Selimus,' 
which  was    possibly  by  Greene  and  certainly  came 

1  This,  or  some  synonym,  is  the  conventional  epithet  applied  at  the 
date  to  Shakespeare  and  his  work.  Weever  credited  such  characters 
of  Shakespeare  as  Tarquin,  Romeo,  and  Richard  III  with  '  sugred 
tongues'  in  his  Epigrams  of  1595.  In  the  Return  froju  Partiasstis 
(1601?)  Shakespeare  is  apostrophised  as  'sweet  Master  Shakespeare.' 
Milton  did  homage  to  the  tradition  by  writing  of  '  sweetest  Shakespeare  ' 
in  L^ Allegro. 


l8o  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

into  being  long  before  Shakespeare  had  written  a  line 
of  blank  verse.  The  same  initials  — '  W.  S.'  ^ —  figured 
on  the  title-pages  of  '  The  Puritaine,  or  the  Widdow  of 
Watling-streete '  (printed  by  G.  Eld  in  1607),  and  of 
'The  True  Chronicle  Historie  of  Thomas,  Lord 
Cromwell'  (licensed  August  11,  1602,  and  printed  by- 
Thomas  Snodham  in  16 13).  Shakespeare's  full  name 
appeared  on  the  title-pages  of  '  The  Life  of  Oldcastle  ' 
in  1600  (printed  by  T[homas]  P[avier]),  of  '  The 
London  Prodigall '  in  1605  (printed  by  T.  C.  for 
Nathaniel  Butter),  and  of  '  The  Yorkshire  Tragedy ' 
in  1608  (by  R.  B.  for  Thomas  Pavicr).  None  of  these 
six  plays  have  any  internal  claim  to  Shakespeare's 
authorship  ;  nevertheless  all  were  uncritically  included 
in  the  third  folio  of  his  collected  works  (1664).  Schlegel 
and  a  few  other  critics  of  repute  have,  on  no  grounds 
that  merit  acceptance,  detected  signs  of  Shakespeare's 
genuine  work  in  one  of  the  six,  '  The  Yorkshire 
Tragedy ';  it  is  *  a  coarse,  crude,  and  vigorous  im- 
promptu,' which  is  clearly  by  a  far  less  experienced 
hand. 

1  A  hack-writer,  Wentworth  Smith,  took  a  hand  in  producing 
thirteen  plays,  none  of  which  are  extant,  for  the  theatrical  manager, 
Philip  Henslowe,  between  1601  and  1603.  The  Hector  of  Germanie, 
an  extant  play  '  made  by  W.  Smith  '  and  published  '  with  new  additions ' 
in  1615,  was  doubtless  by  Wentworth  Smith,  and  is  the  only  dramatic 
work  by  him  that  has  survived.  Neither  internal  nor  external  evidence 
confirms  the  theory  that  the  six  above-mentioned  plays,  which  have 
been  wrongly  claimed  for  Shakespeare,  were  really  by  Wentworth 
Smith.  The  use  of  the  initials  'W.  S.'  was  not  due  to  the  pub- 
lishers' belief  that  Wentworth  Smith  was  the  author,  but  to  their 
endeavour  to  hoodwink  their  customers  into  a  belief  that  the  plays 
were  by  Shakespeare. 


THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   DRAMATIC   POWER       l8l 

The  fraudulent  practice  of  crediting  Shakespeare 
with  valueless  plays  from  the  pens  of  comparatively 
dull-witted  contemporaries  was  in  vogue  among  enter- 
prising traders  in  literature  both  early  and  late  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  worthless  old  play  on  the 
subject  of  King  John  was  attributed  to  Shakespeare 
in  the  reissues  of  i6i  i  and  1622.  Humphrey  Moseley, 
a  reckless  publisher  of  a  later  period,  fraudulently 
entered  on  the  '  Stationers'  Register '  on  September  9, 
1653,  two  pieces  which  he  represented  to  be  in  whole 
or  in  part  by  Shakespeare,  viz.  '  The  Merry  Devill  of 
Edmonton  '  and  the  '  History  of  Cardenio,'  a  share  in 
which  was  assigned  to  Fletcher.  'The  Merry  Devill 
of  Edmonton,'  which  was  produced  on  the  stage  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  was  entered  on 
the  '  Stationers'  Register,'  October  22,  1607,  and  was 
first  published  anonymously  in  1608  ;  it  is  a  delight- 
ful comedy,  abounding  in  both  humour  and  romantic 
sentiment ;  at  times  it  recalls  scenes  of  the  '  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,'  but  no  sign  of  Shakespeare's 
workmanship  is  apparent.  The  '  History  of  Cardenio' 
is  not  extant.^  Francis  Kirkman,  another  active 
London  publisher,  who  first  printed  William  Rowley's 
^  Birth  of  Merlin'  in  1662,  described  it  on  the  title- 
page  as  '  written  by  William  Shakespeare  and  William 
Rowley  ; '  it  was  unwisely  reprinted  at  Halle  in  a  so- 
called  '  Collection  of  pseudo-Shakespearean  plays  '  in 
1887. 

But  poems  no  less  than  plays,  in  which  Shake- 
speare had  no  hand,  were  deceptively  placed  to  his 

.1  Cf.  p.  258,  infra. 


l82  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

credit  as  soon  as  his  fame  was  established.  In  1 599 
William  Jaggard,  a  well-known  pirate  publisher, 
issued  a  poetic  anthology  which  he  entitled  '  The 
'The  Pis-  Passionate  Pilgrim,  by  W.  Shakespeare.' 
sionate  The  volume  opened  with  two  sonnets  by 
ignm.  Shakespeare  which  were  not  previously  in 
print,  and  there  followed  three  poems  drawn  from 
the  already  published  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost ' ;  but 
the  bulk  of  the  volume  was  by  Richard  Barnfield 
and  others.^  A  third  edition  of  the  '  Passionate  Pil- 
grim '  was  printed  in  16 12  with  unaltered  title-page, 
although  the  incorrigible  Jaggard  had  added  two  new 
poems  which  he  silently  filched  from  Thomas  Hey- 
wood's  '  Troia  Britannica.'  Hey  wood  called  attention 
to  his  own  grievance  in  the  dedicatory  epistle  before 
his  'Apology  for  Actors'  (1612),  and  he  added  that 
Shakespeare  resented  the  more  substantial  injury 
which  the  publisher  had  done  him.  '  I  know,'  wrote 
Heywood  of  Shakespeare,  '  [he  was]  much  offended 
with  M.  Jaggard  that  (altogether  unknown  to  him)  pre- 
sumed to  make  so  bold  with  his  name.'     In  the  result 

1  There  were  twenty  pieces  in  all.  The  five  by  Shakespeare  are 
placed  in  the  order  i.  ii.  iii.  v.  xvi.  Of  the  remainder,  two  —  '  If  music 
a^id  sweet  poetry  agree  '  (No.  viii.)  and  '  As  it  fell  upon  a  day  '  (No.  xx.) 
—  were  borrowed  from  Barnfield's  Poems  in  Divers  Humours  (1598). 
'  Venus  with  Adonis  sitting  by  her '  (No.  xi.)  is  from  Bartholomew 
Griffin's  Fidessa  (1596);  'My  flocks  feed  not'  (No.  xvii.)  is  adapted 
from  Thomas  Weelkes's  Madrigals  (1597) ;  '  Live  with  me  and  be  my 
love  '  is  by  Marlowe;  and  the  appended  stanza,  entitled  '  Love's  Answer,' 
by  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  (No.  xix.)  ;  'Crabbed  age  and  youth  cannot  live 
together'  (No.  xii.),  is  a  popular  song  often  quoted  by  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists.  Nothing  has  been  ascertained  of  the  origin  and  history  of 
the  remaining  nine  poems  (iv.  vi.  vii.  ix.  x.  xiii.  xiv.  xviii.). 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF   DRAMATIC   POWER       1 83 

the  publisher  seems  to  have  removed  Shakespeare's 
name  from  the  title-page  of  a  few  copies.  This  is 
the  only  instance  on  record  of  a  protest  on  Shake- 
speare's part  against  the  many  injuries  which  he 
suffered  at  the  hands  of  contemporary  publishers. 

In  1 60 1  Shakespeare's  full  name  was  appended  to 
'  a  poetical  essaie  on  the  Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,' 
'The  which  was  published  by  Edward  Blount  in  an 

ancTth'e  appendix  to  Robert  Chester's  'Love's  Martyr, 
Turtle.'  or  Rosalius  complaint,  allegorically  shadow- 
ing the  Truth  of  Love  in  the  Constant  Fate  of  the 
Phoenix  and  Turtle.'  The  drift  of  Chester's  crabbed 
verse  is  not  clear,  nor  can  the  praise  of  perspicuity  be 
allowed  to  the  appendix  to  which  Shakespeare  contrib- 
uted, together  with  Marston,  Chapman,  Ben  Jonson, 
and  *  Ignoto.'  The  appendix  is  introduced  by  a  new 
title-page  running  thus :  '  Hereafter  follow  diverse 
poeticall  Essaies  on  the  former  subject,  viz :  the 
Turtle  and  Phoenix.  Done  by  the  best  and  chiefest 
of  our  modern  writers,  with  their  names  subscribed 
to  their  particular  workes :  never  before  extant.' 
Shakespeare's  alleged  contribution  consists  of  thir- 
teen four-lined  stanzas  in  trochaics,  each  line  being  of 
seven  syllables,  with  the  rhymes  disposed  as  in  Ten- 
,:nyson's  *In  Memoriam.'  The  concluding  'threnos'  is 
in  five  three-lined  stanzas,  also  in  trochaics,  each 
stanza  having  a  single  rhyme.  The  poet  describes  in 
enigmatic  language  the  obsequies  of  the  Phoenix 
and  the  Turtle-dove,  who  had  been  united  in  life  by 
the  ties  of  a  purely  spiritual  love.  The  poem  may  be 
a  mere  play  of  fancy  without  recondite  intention,  or  it 


1 84  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

may  be  of  allegorical  import ;  but  whether  it  bear 
relation  to  pending  ecclesiastical,  political,  or  meta- 
physical controversy,  or  whether  it  interpret  popular 
grief  for  the  death  of  some  leaders  of  contemporary 
society,  is  not  easily  determined.^  Happily  Shake- 
speare wrote  nothing  else  of  like  character. 

1  A  unique  copy  of  Chester's  Love's  Martyr  is  in  Mr.  Christie- 
Miller's  library  at  Britwell.  Of  a  reissue  of  the  original  edition  in  i6il 
with  a  new  title,  The  Annals  of  Great  Brittaine,  a  copy  (also  unique)  is 
in  the  British  Museum.  A  reprint  of  the  original  edition  was  prepared 
for  private  circulation  by  Dr.  Grosart  in  1878,  in  his  series  of  'Occa- 
sional Issues.'  It  was  also  printed  in  the  same  year  as  one  of  the  pub- 
lications of  the  New  Shakspere  Society.  Matthew  Roydon  in  his  elegy 
on  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  appended  to  Spenser's  Colin  Clouts  Come  Home 
Again,  1595,  describes  the  part  figuratively  played  in  Sidney's  obsequies 
by  the  turtle-dove,  swan,  phoenix,  and  eagle,  in  verses  that  very  closely 
resemble  Shakespeare's  account  of  the  funereal  functions  fulfilled  by  the 
same  four  birds  in  his  contribution  to  Chester's  volume.  This  resemblance 
suggests  that  Shakespeare's  poem  may  be  a  fanciful  adaptation  of  Roy- 
don's  elegiac  conceits  without  ulterior  significance.  Shakespeare's  con- 
cluding 'Threnos'  is  imitated  in  metre  and  phraseology  by  Fletcher  in 
his  Alad  Lover  in  the  song  '  The  Lover's  Legacy  to  his  Cruel  Mistress.' 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  185 


XII 

THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF  LIFE 

Shakespeare,  in  middle  life,  brought  to  practical 
affairs  a  singularly  sane  and  sober  temperament. 
Shake-  1^1  '  Ratseis  Ghost'  (1605),  an  anecdotal 
speare's       biographv  of  Gamaliel  Ratsey,  a  notorious 

practical         ,.^^-^  ,  ,-^'  ^, 

tempera-  highwayman,  who  was  hanged  at  Bed- 
ment.  ioxdi  on  March  26,  1605,  the  highwayman  is 

represented  as  compelling  a  troop  of  actors  whom  he 
met  by  chance  on  the  road  to  perform  in  his  presence. 
At  the  close  of  the  performance  Ratsey,  according 
to  the  memoir,  addressed  himself  to  a  leader  of  the 
company,  and  cynically  urged  him  to  practise  the 
utmost  frugality  in  London.  '  When  thou  feelest  thy 
purse  well  lined  (the  counsellor  proceeded),  buy  thee 
some  place  or  lordship  in  the  country  that,  growing 
weary  of  playing,  thy  money  may  there  bring  thee  to 
dignity  and  reputation.'  Whether  or  no  Ratsey's 
biographer  consciously  identified  the  highwayman's 
auditor  with  Shakespeare,  it  was  the  prosaic  course 
of  conduct  marked  out  by  Ratsey  that  Shakespeare 
literally  followed.  As  soon  as  his  position  in  his  pro- 
fession was  assured,  he  devoted  his  energies  to  re-es- 
tablishing the  fallen  fortunes  of  his  family  in  his  native 


1 86  WILLIAM   SHAKESrEARL 

place,  and  to  acquiring  for  himself  and  his  successors 
the  status  of  gentlefolk. 

His  father's  pecuniary  embarrassments  had  steadily 
increased  since  his  son's  departure.  Creditors  harassed 
j^jg  him  unceasingly.     In  1587  one  Nicholas  Lane 

father's  pursucd  him  for  a  debt  for  which  he  had  be- 
en ties.  ^Qj-|^g  liable  as  surety  for  his  brother  Henry, 
who  was  still  farming  their  father's  lands  at  Snitterfield. 
Through  1588  and  1589  John  Shakespeare  retaliated 
with  pertinacity  on  a  debtor  named  John  Tompson.  But 
in  1 59 1  a  creditor,  Adrian  Quiney,  obtained  a  writ  of 
distraint  against  him,  and  although  in  1592  he  attested 
inventories  taken  on  the  death  of  two  neighbours,  Ralph 
Shaw  and  Henry  Field,  father  of  the  London  printer, 
he  was  on  December  25  of  the  same  year  'presented' 
as  a  recusant  for  absenting  himself  from  Church. 
The  commissioners  reported  that  his  absence  was 
probably  due  to  '  fear  of  process  for  debt.'  He  figures 
for  the  last  time  in  the  proceedings  of  the  local  court, 
in  his  customary  role  of  defendant,  on  March  9,  1595. 
He  was  then  joined  with  two  fellow-traders — Philip 
Green,  a  chandler,  and  Henry  Rogers,  a  butcher  —  as 
defendant  in  a  suit  brought  by  Adrian  Quiney  and 
Thomas  Barker  for  the  recovery  of  the  sum  of  five 
pounds.  Unlike  his  partners  in  the  litigation,  his  name 
is  not  followed  in  the  record  by  a  mention  of  his 
calling,  and  when  the  suit  reac^ied  a  later  stage  his 
name  was  omitted  altogether.  These  may  be  viewed 
as  indications  that  in  the  course  of  the  proceedings 
he  finally  retired  from  trade,  which  had  been  of  late 
prolific  in  disasters  for  him.     In  January  1596-7  he 


THE   PRACTICAL   AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  187 

conveyed  a  slip  of  land  attached  to  his  dwelling  in 
Henley  Street  to  one  George  Badger. 

There  is  a  likelihood  that  the  poet's  wife  fared, 
in  the  poet's  absence,  no  better  than  his  father.  The 
only  contemporary  mention  made  of  her  between  her 
His  wife's  marriage  in  1582  and  her  husband's  death  in 
debt.  16 16  is  as  the  borrower  at  an  unascertained 

date  (evidently  before  1595)  of  forty  shillings  from 
Thomas  Whittington,  who  had  formerly  been  her 
father's  shepherd.  The  money  was  unpaid  when  Whit- 
tington died  in  1601,  and  he  directed  his  executor  to 
recover  the  sum  from  the  poet  and  distribute  it  among 
the  poor  of  Stratford.^ 

It  was  probably  in  1596  that  Shakespeare  re- 
turned, after  nearly  eleven  years'  absence,  to  his 
native  town,  and  worked  a  revolution  in  the  affairs  of 
his  family.  The  prosecutions  of  his  father  in  the 
local  court  ceased.  Thenceforth  the  poet's  rela- 
tions with  Stratford  were  uninterrupted.  He  still 
resided  in  London  for  most  of  the  year ;  but  until  the 
close  of  his  professional  career  he  paid  the  town  at 
least  one  annual  visit,  and  he  was  always  formally 
described  as  'of  Stratford-on-Avon,  gentleman.'  He 
was  no  doubt  there  on  August  11,  1596,  when  his 
only  son,  Hamnet,  was  buried  in  the  parish  church ; 
the  boy  was  eleven  and  a  half  years  old. 

At  the  same  date  the  poet's  father,  despite  his 
pecuniary  embarrassments,  took  a  step,  by  way  of 
regaining  his  prestige,  which  must  be  assigned  to  the 

1  Halliu'ell-rhillipps,  ii.  186. 


l88  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

poet's  intervention.^  He  made  applicatioi.  to  the 
College  of  Heralds  for  .^  cuat-of-arms.^  Then,  as 
now,  the  heralds  when  bestowing  new  coa'uS-of-arms 
commonly  credited  the  applicant's  family  with  an 
imaginary  antiquity,  and  little  reliance  need  be  placed 
on  the  biographical  or  genealogical  statements  alleged 
in  grants  of  arms.  The  poet's  father  or  the  poet 
himself  when  first  applying  to  the  College  stated  that 
The  coat-  John  Shakespeare,  in  1 568,  while  he  was  bailiff 
of-arms.  yf  Stratford,  and  while  he  was  by  virtue  of 
that  office  a  justice  of  the  peace,  had  obtained  from 
Robert  Cook,  then  Clarenceux  herald,  a  '  pattern '  or 
sketch  of  an  armorial  coat.  This  allegation  is  not 
noticed  in  the  records  of  the  College,  and  may  be  a 
formal  fiction  designed  by  John  Shakespeare  and  his 
son  to  recommend  their  claim  to  the  notice  of  the 
heralds.  The  negotiations  of  1568,  if  they  were  not 
apocryphal,  were  certainly  abortive ;  otherwise  there 
would  have  been  no  necessity  for  the  further  action 
of  1596.  In  any  case,  on  October  20,  1596,  a  draft, 
which    remains    in   the    College    of   Arms,  was  pre- 

1  There  is  an  admirable  discussion  of  the  question  involved  in  the 
poet's  heraldry  in  Herald  and  Genealogist,  i.  510.  Facsimiles  of  all 
the  documents  preserved  in  the  College  of  Arms  are  given  in  Miscellanea 
Genealogica  et  Ileraldica,  2nd  ser.  1886,  i.  109.  Halliwell-Phillipps 
prints  imperfectly  one  of  the  1596  draft-grants,  and  that  of  1599  (^Out- 
lines, ii.  56,  60),  but  does  not  distinguish  between  the  character  of  the 
negotiations  of  the  two  years. 

2  It  is  still  customary  at  the  College  of  Arms  to  inform  an  applicant 
for  a  coat-of-arms  who  has  a  father  alive  that  the  application  should  be 
made  in  the  father's  name,  and  the  transaction  conducted  as  if  the 
father  were  the  principal.  It  was  doubtless  on  advice  of  this  kind  that 
Shakespeare  was  acting  in  the  negotiations  that  are  described  below. 


THE   PRACTICAL   AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  189 

pared  under  the  direction  of  William  Dethick, 
Garter  King-of-Arms,  granting  John's  request  for 
a  coat-of-arms.  Garter  stated,  with  characteristic 
vagueness,  that  he  had  been  '  by  credible  report ' 
informed  that  the  applicant's  '  parentes  and  late  an- 
tecessors were  for  theire  valeant  and  f aithf ull  service 
advanced  and  rewarded  by  the  most  prudent  prince 
King  Henry  the  Seventh  of  famous  memorie,  sythence 
whiche  tyme  they  have  continewed  at  those  partes  \_i.c\ 
Warwickshire]  in  goodreputacion  and  credit ; '  and  that 
'  the  said  John  [had]  maryed  Mary,  daughter  and  heiress 
of  Robert  Arden,  of  Wilmcote,  gent.'  In  considera- 
tion of  these  titles  to  honour,  Garter  declared  that  he 
assigned  to  Shakespeare  this  shield,  viz.  :  '  Gold,  on  a 
bend  sable,  a  spear  of  the  first,  and  for  his  crest  or  cog- 
nizance a  falcon,  his  wings  displayed  argent,  standing  on 
a  wreath  of  his  colours,  supporting  a  spear  gold  steeled 
as  aforesaid.'  In  the  margin  of  this  draft-grant  there 
is  a  pen  sketch  of  the  arms  and  crest,  and  above  them 
is  written  the  motto,  '  Non  Sans  Droict.'  ^  A  second 
copy  of  the  draft,  also  dated  in  1596,  is  extant  at  the 
College.  The  only  alterations  are  the  substitution  of 
the  word  'grandfather'  for 'antecessors'  in  the  account 
of  John  Shakespeare's  ancestry,  and  the  substitution 
of  the  word  *  esquire  '  for  '  gent '  in  the  description  of 
his  wife's  father,  Robert  Arden.  At  the  foot  of  this 
draft,  however,  appeared  some  disconnected  and 
unverifiable  memoranda  which  John  Shakespeare  or 

1  In  a  manuscript  in  the  British  Museum  (J/ar/.  Jl/S.  6140,  f.  45) 
is  a  copy  of  the  tricking  of  the  arms  of  William  '  Shakspere,'  which  is 
described  '  as  a  pattent  per  Will'm  Dethike  Garter,  principale  King  of 
Amies';  this  is  figured  in  French's  Sliakespeareaiui  Genealo^ica,  p.  524. 


190  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

his  son  had  supplied  to  the  heralds,  to  the  effect  that 
John  had  been  bailiff  of  Stratford,  had  received  a 
'  pattern '  of  a  shield  from  Clarenceux  Cook,  was  a 
man  of  substance,  and  had  married  into  a  worshipful 
family.^ 

Neither  of  these  drafts  was  fully  executed.  It 
may  have  been  that  the  unduly  favourable  representa- 
tions made  to  the  College  respecting  John  Shake- 
speare's social  and  pecuniary  position  excited  sus- 
picion even  in  the  habitually  credulous  minds  of  the 
heralds,  or  those  officers  may  have  deemed  the 
profession  of  the  son,  who  was  conducting  the  nego- 
tiation, a  bar  to  completing  the  transaction.  At  any 
rate,  Shakespeare  and  his  father  allowed  three  years 
to  elapse  before  (as  far  as  extant  documents  show) 
they  made  a  further  endeavour  to  secure  the  coveted 
distinction.  In  1599  their  efforts  were  crowned 
with  success.  Changes  in  the  interval  among  the 
officials  at  the  College  may  have  facilitated  the 
proceedings.  In  1597  the  Earl  of  Essex  had  become 
Earl  Marshal  and  chief  of  the  Heralds'  College  (the 
office    had  been  in  commission  in    1596);  while  the 

^  These  memoranda,  which  were  as  follows,  were  first  written  with- 
out the  words  here  enclosed  in  brackets;  those  words  were  afterwards 
interlineated  in  the  manuscript  in  a  hand  similar  to  that  of  the  original 
sentences : 

'  [This  John  shoeth]  A  patierne  therof  under  Clarent  Cookes  hand 
in  paper,     xx.  years  past.     [The  Q.  officer  and  cheffe  of  the  towne] 

[A  Justice  of  peace]  And  was  a  Baylife  of  Stratford  uppo  Avon 
XV.  or  xvj.  years  past. 

That  he  hathe  lands  and  tenements  of  good  wealth  and  substance 
[500  li.] 

That  he  mar[ried  a  daughter  and  heyre  of  Arden,  a  gent,  of 
worship.] ' 


THE   PR.\CTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  191 

great  scholar  and  antiquary,  William  Camden,  had 
joined  the  College,  also  in  1597,  as  Clarenceux  King- 
of-Arms.  The  poet  was  favourably  known  to  both 
Camden  and  the  Earl  of  Essex,  the  close  friend  of 
the  Earl  of  Southampton.  His  father's  application 
now  took  a  new  form.  No  grant  of  arms  was  asked 
for.  It  was  asserted  without  qualification  that  the 
coat,  as  set  out  in  the  draft-grants  of  1596  had  been 
assigned  to  John  Shakespeare  while  he  was  bailiff,  and 
the  heralds  were  merely  invited  to  give  him  a  '  recogni- 
tion '  or  '  exemplification  '  of  it.^  At  the  same  time  he 
asked  permission  for  himself  to  impale,  and  his  eldest 
son  and  other  children  to  quarter,  on  '  his  ancient  coat- 
of-arms '  that  of  the  Ardens  of  Wilmcote,  his  wife's 
family.  The  College  officers  were  characteristically 
complacent.  A  draft  was  prepared  under,the  hands  of 
Dethick,  the  Garter  king,  and  of  Camden,  the  Claren- 
ceux King,  granting  the  required  'exemplification  '  and 
authorising  the  required  impalement  and  quartering. 
On  one  point  only  did  Dethick  and  Camden  betray  con- 
scientious scruples.  Shakespeare  and  his  father  ob- 
viously desired  the  heralds  to  recognise  the  title  of  Mary 
Shakespeare  (the  poet's  mother)  to  bear  the  arms 
of  the  great  Warwickshire  family  of  Arden,  then 
seated  at  Park  Hall.  But  the  relationship,  if  it  existed, 
was  undetermined ;  the  Warwickshire  Ardens  were 
gentry  of  influence  in  the  county,  and  were  certain  to 

1  An  '  exemplification '  was  invariably  secured  more  easily  than  a 
new  grant  of  arms.  The  heralds  might,  if  they  chose,  tacitly  accept, 
without  examination,  the  applicant's  statement  that  his  family  had  borne 
arms  long  ago,  and  they  thereby  regarded  themselves  as  relieved  of  the 
obligation  of  close  inquiry  into  his  present  status. 


192  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

protest  against  any  hasty  assumption  of  identity  be- 
tween their  line  and  that  of  the  humble  farmer  of  Wilm- 
cote.  After  tricking  the  Warwickshire  Arden  coat  in 
the  margin  of  the  draft-grant  for  the  purpose  of  indicat- 
ing the  manner  of  its  impalement,  the  heralds  on  second 
thoughts  erased  it.  They  substituted  in  their  sketch 
the  arms  of  an  Arden  family  living  at  Alvanley  in 
the  distant  county  of  Cheshire.  With  that  stock  there 
was  no  pretence  that  Robert  Arden  of  Wilmcote  was 
lineally  connected;  but  the  bearers  of  the  Alvanley  coat 
were  unlikely  to  learn  of  its  suggested  impalement 
with  the  Shakespeare  shield,  and  the  heralds  were  less 
liable  to  the  risk  of  litigation.  But  the  Shakespeares 
wisely  relieved  the  College  of  all  anxiety  by  omitting 
to  assume  the  Arden  coat.  The  Shakespeare  arms 
alone  are  displayed  with  full  heraldic  elaboration  on  the 
monument  above  the  poet's  grave  in  Stratford  Church ; 
they  alone  appear  on  the  seal  and  on  the  tombstone  of 
his  elder  daughter,  Mrs.  Susanna  Hall,  impaled  with  the 
arms  of  her  husband ;  ^  and  they  alone  were  quartered 
by  Thomas  Nash,  the  first  husband  of  the  poet's 
granddaughter,  Elizabeth  Hall.'-^ 

Some  objection  was  taken  a  few  years  later  to  the 
grant  even  of  the  Shakespeare  shield,  but  it  was  based 
on  vexatious  grounds  that  could  not  be  upheld. 
Early  in  the  seventeenth  century  Ralph  Brooke,  who 
was  York  herald  from  1593  till  his  death  in  1625,  and 
was  long  engaged  in  a  bitter  quarrel  with  his  fellow- 

1  On  the  gravestone  of  John  Hall,  Shakespeare's  elder  son-in-law, 
the  Shakespeare  arms  are  similarly  impaled  with  those  of  Hall. 
^  French  ShakespcaJ'c'ana  Genealogica,  p.  413. 


THE  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  193 

officers  at  the  College,  complained  that  the  arms 
'exemplified'  to  Shakespeare  usurped  the  coat  of  Lord 
Mauley,  on  whose  shield  '  a  bend  sable '  also  figured. 
Dethick  and  Camden,  who  were  responsible  for  any 
breach  of  heraldic  etiquette  in  the  matter,  answered 
that  the  Shakespeare  shield  bore  as  much  resemblance 
to  the  Mauley  coat  as  to  that  of  the  Harley  and  the 
Ferrers  families,  which  also  bore  '  a  bend  sable,'  but 
that  in  point  of  fact  it  differed  conspicuously  from  all 
three  by  the  presence  of  a  spear  on  the  '  bend.'  Dethick 
and  Camden  added,  with  customary  want  of  precision, 
that  the  person  to  whom  the  grant  was  made  had 
'borne  magistracy  and  was  justice  of  peace  at  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon  ;  he  maried  the  daughter  and  heire  of 
Arderne,  and  was  able  to  maintain  that  Estate.'  ^ 

Meanwhile,  in  1597,  the  poet  had  taken  openly 
in  his  own  person  a  more  effective  step  in  the  way  of 
rehabilitating  himself  and  his  family  in  the  eyes  of 
Purchaseof  his  fcllow-townsmen.  On  May  4  he  pur- 
New  Place,  chased  the  largest  house  in  the  town, 
known  as  New  Place.  It  had  been  built  by  Sir 
Hugh  Clopton  more  than  a  century  before,  and 
seems  to  have  fallen  into  a  ruinous  condition.  But 
Shakespeare  paid  for  it,  with  two  barns  and  two 
gardens,  the  then  substantial  sum  of  60/.  Owing 
to  the  sudden  death  of  the  vendor,  William  Under- 

^  The  details  of  Brooke's  accusation  are  not  extant,  and  are  only 
to  be  deduced  from  the  answer  of  Garter  and  Clarenceux  to  Brooke's 
complaint,  two  copies  of  which  are  accessible :  one  is  in  the  vol.  W-Z 
at  the  Heralds'  College,  f.  276;  and  the  other,  slightly  differing,  is  in 
Ashmole  MS.  846,  ix.  f.  50.  Both  are  printed  in  the  Herald  and 
Genealogist,  i.  514. 


194  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

hill,  on  July  7,  1597,  the  original  transfer  of  the  prop- 
erty was  left  at  the  time  incomplete.  Underhill's 
son  Fulk  died  a  felon,  and  he  was  succeeded  in  the 
family  estates  by  his  brother  Hercules,  who  on 
coming  of  age.  May  1602,  completed  in  a  new  deed 
the  transfer  of  New  Place  to  Shakespeare.^  On 
February  4,  1 597-8,  Shakespeare  was  described  as  a 
householder  in  Chapel  Street  ward,  in  which  New 
Place  was  situated,  and  as  the  owner  of  ten  quarters 
of  corn.  The  inventory  was  made  owing  to  the 
presence  of  famine  in  the  town,  and  only  two  inhab- 
itants were  credited  with  a  larger  holding.  In  the 
same  year  (1598)  he  procured  stone  for  the  repair  of 
the  house,  and  before  1602  had  planted  a  fruit 
orchard.  He  is  traditionally  said  to  have  interested 
himself  in  the  garden,  and  to  have  planted  with 
his  own  hands  a  mulberry  tree,  which  was  long  a 
prominent  feature  of  it.  When  this  was  cut  down, 
in  1758,  numerous  relics  were  made  from  it,  and 
were  treated  with  an  almost  superstitious  venera- 
tion.^ Shakespeare  does  not  appear  to  have  per- 
manently settled  at   New  Place  till   1611.     In   1609 

1  Notes  and  Queries,  8th  ser.  v.  478. 

■^  The  tradition  that  Shakespeare  planted  the  mulberry  tree  was  not 
put  on  record  till  it  was  cut  down  in  1758.  In  1760  mention  is  made  of 
it  in  a  letter  of  thanks  in  the  corporation's  archives  from  the  Steward  of 
the  Court  of  Record  to  the  corporation  of  Stratford  for  presenting  him 
with  a  standish  made  from  the  wood.  But,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  old  inhabitants  confided  to  Malone  (cf.  his  Life  of  Shakespeare,  1790, 
p.  118),  the  legend  had  been  orally  current  in  Stratford  since  Shake- 
speare's lifetime.  The  tree  was  perhaps  planted  in  1609,  when  a  French- 
man named  Veron  distributed  a  number  of  young  mulberry  trees  through 
the  midland  counties  by  order  of  James  I,  who  desired  to  encourage 
the  culture  of  silk-worms  (cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i,  134,  411-16). 


THE  .  PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  195 

the  house,  or  part  of  it,  was  occupied  by  the  town 
clerk,  Thomas  Greene,  *  alias  Shakespeare,'  who 
claimed  to  be  the  poet's  cousin.  His  grandmother 
seems  to  have  been  a  Shakespeare.  He  often  acted 
as  the  poet's  legal  adviser. 

It  was  doubtless  under  their  son's  guidance  that 
Shakespeare's  father  and  mother  set  on  foot  in 
November  1597  —  six  months  after  his  acquisition  of 
New  Place —  a  lawsuit  against  John  Lambert  for  the 
recovery  of  the  mortgaged  estate  of  Asbies  in  Wilm- 
cote.  The  litigation  dragged  on  for  some  years 
without  result. 

Three  letters  written  during  1598  by  leading  men 
at  Stratford  are  still  extant  among  the  Corporation's 
archives,  and  leave  no  doubt  of  the  reputation  for 
wealth  and  influence  with  which  the  purchase  of  New 
Place  invested  the  poet  in  his  fellow-townsmen's 
Appeals  eyes.  Abraham  Sturley,  who  was  once 
for  aid  bailiff,  writing  early  in  1598,  apparently 
fellow-  to  a  brother  in  London,  says :  '  This  is 
townsmen,  q^q  special  remembrance  from  our  father's 
motion.  It  seemeth  by  him  that  our  countryman,  Mr. 
Shakspere,  is  willing  to  disburse  some  money  upon 
some  odd  yardland  or  other  at  Shottery,  or  near 
about  us  :  he  thinketh  it  a  very  fit  pattern  to  move 
him  to  deal  in  the  matter  of  our  tithes.  By  the  in- 
structions you  can  give  him  thereof,  and  by  the 
friends  he  can  make  therefor,  we  think  it  a  fair  mark 
for  him  to  shoot  at,  and  would  do  us  much  good.' 
Richard  Quiney,  another  townsman,  father  of  Thomas 
(afterwards  one  of   Shakespeare's  two    sons-in-law), 


196  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

was,  ill  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  harassed  by 
debt,  and  on  October  25  appealed  to  Shakespeare  for 
a  loan  of  money.  '  Loving  countryman,'  the  applica- 
tion ran,  '  I  am  bold  of  you  as  of  a  friend  craving 
your  help  with  xxx//.'  Quiney  was  staying  at  the 
Bell  Inn  in  Carter  Lane,  London,  and  his  main  busi- 
ness in  the  metropolis  was  to  procure  exemption  for 
the  town  of  Stratford  from  the  payment  of  a  subsidy. 
Abraham  Sturley,  writing  to  Quiney  from  Stratford 
ten  days  later  (on  November  4,  1598),  pointed  out  to 
him  that  since  the  town  was  wholly  unable,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  dearth  of  corn,  to  pay  the  tax,  he  hoped 
'that  oiw  countryman,  Mr.  Wm.  Shak.,  would  procure 
us  money,  which  I  will  like  of,  as  I  shall  hear  when, 
and  where,  and  how.' 

The  financial  prosperity  to  which  this  corre- 
spondence and  the  transactions  immediately  pre- 
Financiai  Ceding  it  poiut  has  been  treated  as  one  of 
position  the  chief  mysteries  of  Shakespeare's  career, 
eorei599.  -^^^  ^^^  difftcultics  are  gratuitous.  There  is 
practically  nothing  in  Shakespeare's  financial  position 
that  a  study  of  the  contemporary  conditions  of 
theatrical  life  does  not  fully  explain.  It  was  not 
until  1599,  when  the  Globe  Theatre  was  built,  that 
he  acquired  any  share  in  the  profits  of  a  playhouse. 
But  his  revenues  as  a  successful  dramatist  and  actor 
were  by  no  means  contemptible  at  an  earlier  date. 
His  gains  in  the  capacity  of  dramatist  formed  the 
smaller  source  of  income.  The  highest  price  known 
to  have  been  paid  before  1599  to  an  author  for  a 
play  by  the  manager  of  an  acting  company  was  11/.; 


THE   PRACTICAL  AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  I97 

61.  was  the  lowest  ratc.^  A  small  additional  gratuity  — 
rarely  apparently  exceeding  ten  shillings  —  was  be- 
stowed on  a  dramatist  whose  piece  on  its  first  produc- 
tion was  especially  well  received ;  and  the  author  was 
by  custom  allotted,  by  way  of  '  benefit,'  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  the  receipts  of  the  theatre  on  the  production 
of  a  play  for  the  second  time.^  Other  sums,  amount- 
ing at  times  to  as  much  as  4/.,  were  bestowed  on  the 
author  for  revising  and  altering  an  old  play  for  a  revival. 
The  nineteen  plays  which  may  be  set  to  Shakespeare's 
credit  between  1591  and  1599,  combined  with  such 
revising  work  as  fell  to  his  lot  during  those  eight 
years,  cannot  consequently  have  brought  him  less 
than  200/.,  or  some  20/.  a  year.  Eight  or  nine  of 
these  plays  were  published  during  the  period,  but  the 

1  I  do  not  think  we  shall  over-estimate  the  present  value  of  Shake- 
speare's income  if  we  multiply  each  of  its  items  by  eight,  but  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  state  authoritatively  the  ratio  between  the  value  of  money  in 
Shakespeare's  time  and  in  our  own.  The  money  value  of  corn  then 
and  now  is  nearly  identical;  but  other  necessaries  of  life  —  meat,  milk, 
eggs,  wool,  building  materials,  and  the  like  —  were  by  comparison  ludi- 
crously cheap  in  Shakespeare's  day.  If  we  strike  the  average  between 
the  low  price  of  these  commodities  and  the  comparatively  high  price  of 
corn,  the  average  price  of  necessaries  will  be  found  to  be  in  Shakespeare's 
day  about  an  eighth  of  what  it  is  now.  The  cost  of  luxuries  is  also  now 
about  eight  times  the  price  that  it  was  in  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth 
century.  Sixpence  was  the  usual  price  of  a  new  quarto  or  octavo  book 
such  as  would  now  be  sold  at  prices  ranging  between  three  shillings 
and  sixpence  and  six  shillings.  Half  a  crown  was  charged  for  the  best- 
placed  seats  in  the  best  theatres.  The  purchasing  power  of  one  Eliza- 
bethan pound  might  be  generally  defined  in  regard  to  both  necessaries  and 
luxuries  as  equivalent  to  that  of  eight  pounds  of  the  present  currency. 

2  Cf.  Henslowe's  Diary,  ed.  Collier,  pp.  xxviii.  seq.  After  the 
Restoration  the  receipts  at  the  third  performance  were  given  for  the 
author's  '  benetit.' 


198  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

publishers  operated  independently  of  the  author, 
taking  all  the  risks  and,  at  the  same  time,  all  the  re- 
ceipts. The  publication  of  Shakespeare's  plays  in 
no  way  affected  his  monetary  resources,  although  his 
friendly  relations  with  the  printer  Field  doubtless 
secured  him,  despite  the  absence  of  any  copyright 
law,  some  part  of  the  profits  in  the  large  and  con- 
tinuous sale  of  his  poems. 

But  it  was  as  an  actor  that  at  an  early  date  he 
acquired  a  genuinely  substantial  and  secure  income. 
There  is  abundance  of  contemporary  evidence  to  show 
that  the  stage  was  for  an  efficient  actor  an  assured 
avenue  to  comparative  wealth.  In  1590  Robert  Greene 
describes  in  his  tract  entitled  '  Never  too  Late '  a  meet- 
ing with  a  player  whom  he  took  by  his  '  outward  habit ' 
to  be  *  a  gentleman  of  great  living '  and  a  '  substan- 
tial man.'  The  player  informed  Greene  that  he  had 
at  the  beginning  of  his  career  travelled  on  foot, 
bearing  his  theatrical  properties  on  his  back,  but  he 
prospered  so  rapidly  that  at  the  time  of  speak- 
ing '  his  very  share  in  playing  apparel  would  not  be 
sold  for  200/.'  Among  his  neighbours  'where  he 
dwelt'  he  was  reputed  able  'at  his  proper  cost  to  build 
a  windmill.'  In  the  university  play,  ' The  Return  from 
Parnassus'  (1600.?),  a  poor  student  enviously  com- 
plains of  the  wealth  and  position  which  a  successful 
actor  derived  from  his  calling  : 

England  affords  those  glorious  vagabonds, 
That  carried  erst  their  fardles  on  their  backs, 
Coursers  to  ride  on  through  the  gazing  streets. 
Sweeping  it  in  their  glaring  satin  suits. 
And  pages  to  attend  their  masterships; 


THE  PRACTICAL   AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  1 99 

With  mouthing  words  that  better  wits  had  framed, 
They  purchase  lands  and  now  esquires  are  made.i 

The  travelling  actors,  from  whom  the  highway- 
man Gamaliel  Ratsey  extorted  a  free  performance  in 
1604,  were  represented  as  men  with  the  certainty 
of  a  rich  competency  in  prospect.^  An  efficient 
actor  received  in  1635  as  large  a  regular  salary 
as  180/.  The  lowest  known  valuation  set  an  actor's 
wages  at  3^.  a  day,  or  about  45/.  a  year.  Shake- 
speare's emoluments  as  an  actor  before  1599  are 
not  likely  to  have  fallen  below  100/.  ;  while  the  re- 
muneration due  to  performances  at  Court  or  in  noble- 
men's houses,  if  the  accounts  of  1594  be  accepted 
as  the  basis  of  reckoning,  added  some  15/. 

Thus  over  130/.  (equal  to  1,040/.  of  to-day)  would 
be  Shakespeare's  average  annual  revenue  before  1599. 
Such  a  sum  would  be  regarded  as  a  very  large  income 
in  a  country  town.  According  to  the  author  of 
'  Ratseis  Ghost,'  the  actor,  who  may  well  have  been 
meant  for  Shakespeare,  practised  in  London  a  strict 
frugality,  and  there  seems  no  reason  why  Shakespeare 
should  not  have  been  able  in   1597  to  draw  from  his 

1  Return  from  Parnassus,  act  v.  scene  i.  11.  10-16. 

2  Cf.  H[enry]  VldiXXotys  Laquei  Kidiculosi  or  Springes  for  Wood- 
cocks, 1613.     Epigram  No.  131,  headed  'Theatrum  Licencia'; 

Cotta's  become  a  player  most  men  know, 

And  will  no  long  take  such  toyling  paines 
For  here's  the  spring  (saith  he)  whence  pleasures  flow 

And  brings  them  damnable  excessive  gaines: 
That  now  are  cedars  growne  from  shrubs  and  sprigs, 

Since  Greene's  Tu  Quoque  and  those  Garlicke  Jigs. 

Greene's  Tu  Quoque  was  a  drolling  piece  very  popular  with  the  rougher 
London  playgoers,  and  '  Garlicke  Jigs '  alluded  derisively  to  step-dances 
which  won  much  esteem  from  patrons  of  the  smaller  playhouses. 


200  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

savings  60/.  wherewith  to  buy  New  Place.  His 
resources  might  well  justify  his  fellow-townsmen's 
opinion  of  his  wealth  in  1598,  and  suffice  be- 
tween 1597  and  1599  to  meet  his  expenses,  in  re- 
building the  house,  stocking  the  barns  with  grain,  and 
conducting  various  legal  proceedings.  But,  according 
to  tradition,  he  had  in  the  Earl  of  Southampton  a 
wealthy  and  generous  friend  who  on  one  occasion 
gave  him  a  large  gift  of  money  to  enable  '  him  to  go 
through  with '  a  purchase  to  which  he  had  a  mind. 
A  munificent  gift,  added  to  professional  gains,  leaves 
nothing  unaccounted  for  in  Shakespeare's  financial 
position  before  1599. 

After  1 599  his  sources  of  income  from  the  theatre 
greatly  increased.  In  1635  the  heirs  of  the  actor 
Financial  Richard  Burbagc  were  engaged  in  litigation 
position  respecting  their  proprietary  rights  in  the  two 
ateri599.  pi^yhouses,  the  Globc  and  the  Blackfriars 
theatres.  The  documents  relating  to  this  litigation 
supply  authentic,  although  not  very  detailed,  informa- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  interest  in  theatrical  property.^ 
Richard  Burbage,  with  his  brother  Cuthbert,  erected 
at  their  sole  cost  the  Globe  Theatre  in  the  winter  of 
1 598-9,  and  the  Blackfriars  Theatre,  which  their  father 
was  building  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1597,  was  also 
their  property.  After  completing  the  Globe  they 
leased  out,  for  twenty-one  years,  shares  in  the  receipts 
of  the  theatre  to  '  those  deserving  men  Shakespeare, 

1  The  documents  which  are  now  in  the  Public  Record  Office  among 
the  papers  relating  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  Office,  were  printed  in 
full  by  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  312-19. 


THE   PRACTICAL   AFFAIRS   OF   LIFE  201 

Hemings,  Condell,  Philips,  and  others.'  All  the  share- 
holders named  were,  like  Ikn-bage,  active  members  of 
Shakespeare's  company  of  players.  The  shares,  which 
numbered  sixteen  in  all,  carried  with  them  the  obli- 
gation of  providing  for  the  expenses  of  the  playhouse, 
and  were  doubtless  in  the  first  instance  freely  bestowed. 
Hamlet  claims,  in  the  play  scene  (iii.  ii.  293),  that 
the  success  of  his  improvised  tragedy  deserved  to  '  get 
him  a  fellowship  in  a  cry  of  players '  —  a  proof  that 
a  successful  dramatist  might  reasonably  expect  such 
a  reward  for  a  conspicuous  effort.  In  *  Hamlet,' 
moreover,  both  a  share  and  a  half-share  of  '  a  fellow- 
ship in  a  cry  of  players '  are  described  as  assets  of 
enviable  value  (in.  ii,  294-6).  How  many  shares 
originally  fell  to  Shakespeare  there  is  no  means  of 
determining.  Records  of  later  subdivisions  suggest 
that  they  did  not  exceed  two.  The  Globe  was  an 
exceptionally  large  and  popular  playhouse.  It  would 
accommodate  some  two  thousand  spectators,  whose 
places  cost  them  sums  varying  between  twopence  and 
half  a  crown.  The  receipts  were  therefore  considera- 
ble, hardly  less  than  25/.  daily,  or  some  8,000/.  a  year. 
According  to  the  documents  of  1635,  an  actor-sharer 
at  the  Globe  received  above  200/.  a  year  on  each  share, 
besides  his  actor's  salary  of  180/.  Thus  Shakespeare 
drew  from  the  Globe  Theatre,  at  the  lowest  estimate, 
more  than  500/.  a  year  in  all. 

His  interest  in  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  was  com- 
paratively unimportant,  and  is  less  easy  to  estimate. 
The  often  quoted  documents  on  which  Collier  de- 
pended to  prove  him  a  substantial  shareholder  in  that 


202  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

playhouse  have  long  been  proved  to  be  forgeries.  The 
pleas  in  the  lawsuit  of  1635  show  that  the  Burbages, 
the  owners,  leased  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  after  its 
establishment  in  1597  for  a  long  term  of  years  to  the 
master  of  the  Children  of  the  Chapel,  but  bought  out 
the  lessee  at  the  end  of  1609,  and  then  'placed'  in 
it  'men-players  which  were  Hemings,  Condell,  Shake- 
speare, &c.'  To  these  and  other  actors  they  allotted 
shares  in  the  receipts,  the  shares  numbering  eight  in 
all.  The  profits  were  far  smaller  than  at  the  Globe, 
and  if  Shakespeare  held  one  share  (certainty  on  the 
point  is  impossible),  it  added  not  more  than  100/.  a 
year  to  his  income,  and  that  not  until  16 10. 

His  remuneration  as  dramatist  between  1599  and 
161 1  was  also  by  no  means  contemptible.  Prices 
paid  to  dramatists  for  plays  rose  rapidly  in  the  early 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century,^  while  the  value 
of  the  author's  '  benefits '  grew  with  the  growing 
Later  voguc    of    the    theatre.       The    exceptional 

income.  popularity  of  Shakespeare's  plays  after  1599 
gave  him  the  full  advantage  of  higher  rates  of  pecu- 
niary reward  in  all  directions,  and  the  seventeen  plays 
which  were  produced  by  him  between  that  year  and 
the  close  of  his  professional  career  in  161 1  probably 
brought  him  an  average  return  of  20/.  each  or  340/.  in 
all  —  nearly  30/.  a  year.  At  the  same  time  the  increase 
in  the  number  of  Court  performances  under  James  I, 
and  the  additional  favour  bestowed  on  Shakespeare's 

1  In  1613  Robert  Daborne,  a  playwright  of  insignificant  reputation, 
charged  for  a  drama  as  much  as  25/.  Alleyn  Papers,  ed.  Collier, 
p.  65. 


THE   PRACTICAL   AFFAIRS    OF    LIFE  203 

company,  may  well  have  given  that  source  of  income 
the  enhanced  value  of  20/.  a  year.^ 

Thus  Shakespeare  in  the  later  period  of  his  life 
was  earning  above  600/.  a  year  in  money  of  the  period. 
With  so  large  a  professional  income  he  could  easily, 
with  good  management,  have  completed  those  pur- 
chases of  houses  and  land  at  Stratford  on  which  he 
laid  out,  between  1599  and  161 3,  a  total  sum  of  970/., 
or  an  annual  average  of  70/.  These  properties,  it 
must  be  remembered,  represented  investments,  and 
he  drew  rent  from  most  of  them.  He  traded,  too,  in 
agricultural  produce.  There  is  nothing  inherently  im- 
probable in  the  statement  of  John  Ward,  the  seven- 
teenth-century vicar  of  Stratford,  that  in  his  last  years 
'  he  spent  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a  year,  as  I  have 
heard,'  although  we  may  reasonably  make  allowance 
for  exaggeration  in  the  round  figures. 

Shakespeare  realised  his  theatrical  shares  several 
years  before  his  death  in  1616,  when  he  left,  ac- 
cording to  his  will,  350/.  in  money  in  addition  to  an 
extensive  real  estate  and  numerous  personal  belong- 
incomes  of  ^^S^'  There  was  nothing  exceptional  in  this 
fellow-  comparative  affluence.  His  friends  and  fellow- 
actors,  Heming  and  Condell,  amassed  equally 
large,  if  not  larger,  fortunes.  Burbage  died  in  1619 
worth  300/.  in  land,  besides  personal  property ;  while  a 
contemporary  actor  and  theatrical  proprietor,  Edward 

^  Ten  pounds  was  the  ordinary  fee  paid  to  actors  for  a  performance 
at  the  Court  of  James  I.  Shakespeare's  company  appeared  annually 
twenty  times  and  more  at  Whitehall  during  the  early  years  of  James  I's 
reign,  and  Shakespeare,  as  being  both  author  and  actor,  doubtless 
received  a  larger  share  of  the  receipts  than  his  colleagues. 


204  WILLIAM   SIIAKESrEARE 

Alleyn,  purchased  the  manor  of  Dulvvich  for  10,000/. 
(in  money  of  his  own  day),  and  devoted  it,  with  much 
other  property,  to  pubh'c  uses,  at  the  same  time  as  he 
made  ample  provision  for  his  family  out  of  the  residue 
of  his  estate.  Gifts  from  patrons  may  have  continued 
occasionally  to  augment  Shakespeare's  resources,  but 
his  wealth  can  be  satisfactorily  assigned  to  better  at- 
tested agencies.  There  is  no  ground  for  treating  it 
as  of  mysterious  origin.^ 

Between  1599  and  1611,  while  London  remained 
Shakespeare's  chief  home,  he  built  up  at  Stratford  a 
large  landed  estate. which  his  purchase  of  New  Place 
had  inaugurated.  In  1601  his  father  died,  being  buried 
on  September  8.  He  apparently  left  no  will,  and  the 
poet,  as  the  eldest  son,  inherited  the  houses  in  Henley 
Street,  the  only  portion  of  the  property  of  the  elder 
Shakespeare  or  of  his  wife  which  had  not  been  alien- 
ated to  creditors.  Shakespeare  permitted  his  mother 
to  reside  in  one  of  the  Henley  Street  houses  till  her 
death  (she  was  buried  September  9,  1608),  and  he 
Formation  derived  a  modest  rent  from  the  other.  On 
ofthe  May  i^  1602,  he  purchased  for  320/.  of  the 

Stratford,  rich  landowners  William  and  John  Combe 
1601-10.  Qf  Stratford  107  acres  of  arable  land  near 
the  town.  The  conveyance  was  delivered,  in  the 
poet's  absence,  to  his  brother  Gilbert,  '  to  the  use  of 
the  within  named  William  Shakespere.'  ^  A  third 
purchase  quickly  followed.  On  September  28,  1602, 
at  a  Court  Baron  of  the  manor  of  Rowington,  one 

1  Cf.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  312-19;   Fleay,  Stage,  pp.  324-8. 
^  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  17-19. 


THE   PRACTICAL   AFP^AIRS   OF   LIFE  205 

Walter  Getley  transferred  to  the  poet  a  cottage  and 
garden  which  were  situated  at  Chapel  Lane,  opposite 
the  lower  grounds  of  New  Place.  They  were  held 
practically  in  fee-simple  at  the  annual  rental  of  2s.  6d. 
It  appears  from  the  roll  that  Shakespeare  did  not 
attend  the  manorial  court  held  on  the  day  fixed  for 
the  transfer  of  the  property  at  Rowington,  and  it  was 
consequently  stipulated  then  that  the  estate  should 
remain  in  the  hands  of  the  lady  of  the  manor  until  he 
completed  the  purchase  in  person.  At  a  later  period  he 
was  admitted  to  the  copyhold,  and  he  settled  the  re- 
mainder on  his  two  daughters  in  fee.  In  April  16 10 
he  purchased  from  the  Combes  20  acres  of  pasture 
land,  to  add  to  the  107  of  arable  land  that  he  had 
acquired  of  the  same  owners  in  1602. 

As  early  as  1 598  Abraham  Sturley  had  suggested 
that  Shakespeare  should  purchase  the  tithes'  of  Strat- 
^i^g  ford.     Seven  years  later,  on  July  24,  1605,  he 

Stratford  bought  for  440/.  of  Ralph  Huband  an 
unexpired  term  of  thirty-one  years  of  a 
ninety-two  years'  lease  of  a  moiety  of  the  tithes  of 
Stratford,  Old  Stratford,  Bishopton,  and  Welcombe. 
The  moiety  was  subject  to  a  rent  of  17/.  to  the 
Corporation,  who  were  the  reversionary  owners  on 
the  lease's  expiration,  and  of  5/.  to  John  Barker,  the 
heir  of  a  former  proprietor.  The  investment  brought 
Shakespeare,  under  the  most  favourable  circum- 
stances, no  more  than  an  annuity  of  38/.  ;  and  the 
refusal  of  persons  who  claimed  an  interest  in  the 
other  moiety  to  acknowledge  the  full  extent  of  their 
liability  to  the  Corporation  led  that  body  to  demand 


206  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

from  the  poet  payments  justly  due  from  others. 
After  1609  he  joined  with  two  interested  persons, 
Richard  Lane  of  Awston  and  Thomas  Greene,  the 
town  clerk  of  Stratford,  in  a  suit  in  Chancery  to  deter- 
mine the  exact  responsibilities  of  all  the  tithe-owners, 
and  in  161 2  they  presented  a  bill  of  complaint  to 
Lord-chancellor  Ellesmere,  with  what  result  is  un- 
known. His  acquisition  of  a  part-ownership  in  the 
tithes  was  fruitful  in  legal  embarrassments. 

Shakespeare  inherited  his  father's  love  of  litigation, 

and  stood  rigorously  by  his  rights  in  all  his  business 

relations.       In    March    1600   he    recovered 

Recovery 

of  small  in  London  a  debt  of  7/.  from  one  John 
debts.  Clayton.       In  July   1604,  in  the  local  court 

at  Stratford,  he  sued  one  Philip  Rogers,  to  whom 
he  had  supplied  since  the  preceding  March  malt 
to  the  value  of  il.  i()s.  lod.,  and  had  on  June 
25  lent  2s.  in  cash.  Rogers  paid  back  6s.,  and 
Shakespeare  sought  the  balance  of  the  account, 
i/.  i^s.  lod.  During  1608  and  1609  he  was  at  law 
with  another  fellow-townsman,  John  Addenbroke. 
On  February  15,  1609,  Shakespeare,  who  was  ap- 
parently represented  by  his  solicitor  and  kinsman, 
Thomas  Greene,^  obtained  judgment  from  a  jury 
against  Addenbroke  for  the  payment  of  61.,  and 
1 1.  5^.  costs,  but  Addenbroke  left  the  town,  and  the 
triumph  proved  barren.  Shakespeare  avenged  him- 
self by  proceeding  against  one  Thomas  Horneby, 
who  had  acted  as  the  absconding  debtor's  bail.^ 

'^See  p.  195.  2  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  77-80. 


MATURITY   OF  GENIUS  20/ 


XIII 

MATURITY  OF  GENIUS 

With  an  inconsistency  that  is  more  apparent  than 
real,  the  astute  business  transactions  of  these  years 
Literary  (i597-i6ii)  Synchronise  with  the  produc- 
work  in  tion  of  Shakcspcarc's  noblest  literary  work 
^^^^'  —  of  his  most  sustained  and  serious  efforts  in 

comedy,  tragedy,  and  romance.  In  1599,  after  aban- 
doning English  history  with  '  Henry  V,'  he  addressed 
himself  to  the  composition  of  his  three  most  perfect 
essays  in  comedy  —  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,'  '  As 
You  Like  It,'  and  'Twelfth  Night'  Their  good- 
humoured  tone  seems  to  reveal  their  author  in  his 
happiest  frame  of  mind ;  in  each  the  gaiety  and 
tenderness  of  youthful  womanhood  are  exhibited  in 
fascinating  union ;  while  Shakespeare's  lyric  gift 
bred  no  sweeter  melodies  than  the  songs  with  which 
the  three  plays  are  interspersed.  At  the  same  time 
each  comedy  enshrines  such  penetrating  reflections  on 
mysterious  problems  of  life  as  mark  the  stage  of 
maturity  in  the  growth  of  the  author's  intellect.  The 
first  two  of  the  three  plays  were  entered  on  the 
'Stationers'  Registers'  before  August  4,  1600,  on 
which  day  a  prohibition  was  set  on  their  publication, 
as  well  as  on  the  publication  of  '  Henry  V  '  and  of  Ben 


208  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Jonson's  '  Every  Man  in  his  Humour.'  This  was  one 
of  the  many  efforts  of  the  acting  company  to  stop  the 
publication  of  plays  in  the  belief  that  the  practice  was 
injurious  to  their  rights.  The  effort  was  only  partially 
successful.  '  Much  Ado,'  like  '  Henry  V,'  was  pub- 
lished before  the  close  of  the  year.  Neither  'As  You 
Like  It'  nor  'Twelfth  Night,'  however,  was  printed 
till  it  appeared  in  the  folio. 

In  '  Much  Ado,'  which  appears  to  have  been 
written  in  1 599,  the  brilliant  and  spirited  comedy  of 
Benedick  and  Beatrice,  and  of  the  blundering  watch- 
men Dogberry  and  Verges,  is  wholly  original ;  but  the 
'  Much  sombre  story  of  Hero  and  Claudio,  about  which 
Ado.'  ^j^g  comic  incident  revolves,  is  drawn  from 
an  Italian  source,  either  from  Bandello  (novel,  xxii.) 
through  Belleforest's  '  Histoires  Tragiques,'  or  from 
Ariosto's  'Orlando  Furioso'  through  Sir  John  Haring- 
ton's  translation  (canto  v.).  Ariosto's  version,  in  which 
the  injured  heroine  is  called  Ginevra,  and  her  lover 
Ariodante,  had  been  dramatised  before.  According 
to  the  accounts  of-  the  Court  revels,  '  A  Historic  of 
Ariodante  and  Ginevra  was  showed  before  her 
Majestic  on  Shrovetuesdaie  at  night'  in  1583.^ 
Throughout  Shakespeare's  play  the  ludicrous  and 
serious  aspects  of  humanity  are  blended  with  a  con- 
vincing naturalness.  The  popular  comic  actor 
William  Kemp  filled  the  role  of  Dogberry,  and 
Cowley  appeared  as  Verges.  In  both  the  Quarto  jf 
1600  and  the  Folio  of   1623  these  actors'  names  ai3 

^Accounts  of  the  Revels^  ed.  Peter  Cunnins^ham  (Shakespear; 
Society),  p.  177;    Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  iii.  406. 


MATURITY   OF  GENIUS  209 

prefixed  by  a  copyist's  error  to  some  of  the  speeches 
allotted  to  the  two  characters  (act  iv.  scene  ii.). 

'  As  You  Like  It,'  which  quickly  followed,  is  a 
dramatic  adaptation  of  Lodge's  romance,  '  Rosa- 
'As  You  lynde,  Euphues  Golden  Legacie  '  (1590),  but 
Like  It;  Shakespeare  added  three  new  characters 
of  first-rate  interest  —  Jaques,  the  meditative  cynic  ; 
Touchstone,  the  most  carefully  elaborated  of  all 
Shakespeare's  fools;  and  the  hoyden  Audrey.  Hints 
for  the  scene  of  Orlando's  encounter  with  Charles  the 
Wrestler,  and  for  Touchstone's  description  of  the 
diverse  shapes  of  a  lie,  were  clearly  drawn  from  a 
book  called  *  Saviolo's  Practise,'  a  manual  of  the  art 
of  self-defence,  which  appeared  in  1595  from  the  pen 
of  Vincentio  Saviolo,  an  Italian  fencing-master  in 
the  service  of  the  Earl  of  Essex.  None  of  Shake- 
speare's comedies  breathes  a  more  placid  temper  or 
approaches  more  nearly  to  a  pastoral  drama.  Yet 
there  is  no  lack  of  intellectual  or  poetic  energy  in  the 
enunciation  of  the  contemplative  philosophy  which  is 
cultivated  in  the  Forest  of  Arden.  In  Rosalind,  Celia, 
Phoebe,  and  Audrey  four  types  of  youthful  woman- 
hood are  contrasted  with  the  liveliest  humour. 

The  date  of  '  Twelfth  Night '  is  probably  1600, 
'Twelfth  and  its  name,  which  has  no  reference  to  the 
Night.'  story,  doubtless  commemorates  the  fact  that 
it  was  designed  for  a  Twelfth  Night  celebration. 
'The  new  map  with  the  augmentation  of  the  Indies,' 
spoken  of  by  Maria  (act  iii.  sc.  ii.  86),  was  a  respect- 
ful reference  to  the  great  map  of  the  world  or  '  hydro- 
graphical   description '   which    was    first   issued  with 


2IO  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Hakluyt's  'Voyages'  in  1599  or  1600,  and  first  dis- 
closed the  full  extent  of  recent  explorations  of  the 
'Indies'  in  the  New  World  and  the  Old.^  Like 
the  'Comedy  of  Errors,'  'Twelfth  Night'  achieved 
the  distinction  early  in  its  career  of  a  presentation  at 
an  Inn  of  Court.  It  was  produced  at  Middle  Temple 
Hall  on  February  2,  1601-2,  and  Manningham,  a  bar- 
rister who  was  present,  described  the  performance.^ 
Manningham  wrote  that  the  piece  was  '  much  like  the 
"Comedy  of  Errors  "  or  "  Menechmi"  in  Plautus,  but 
most  like  and  neere  to  that  in  Italian  called  "  Inganni." ' 
Two  sixteenth-century  Italian  plays  entitled  '  Gl'  In- 
ganni '  ('  The  Cheats  '),  and  a  third  called  '  Gl'  Ingan- 
nati,'  bear  resemblance  to  'Twelfth  Night.'  It  is 
just  possible  that  Shakespeare  had  recourse  to  the 
last,  which  was  based  on  Bandello's  novel  of  Nicuola,^ 
and  was  first  published  at  Siena  in  1538.  But  in  all 
probability  he  dr^w  the  story  solely  from  the  '  His- 
toric of  Apolonius  and  Silla,'  which  was  related  in 
'  Riche  his  Farewell  to  Militarie  Profession '  (158 1). 
The  author  of  that  volume,  Barnabe  Riche,  translated 
the  tale  either  direct  from  Bandello's  Italian  novel 
or  from  the  French  rendering  of  Bandello's  work  in 
Belleforest's  '  Histoires  Tragiques.'    Romantic  pathos, 

1  It  was  reproduced  by  the  Hakluyt  Society  to  accompany  The 
Voyages  and  Workes  of  John  Davis  the  Navigator,  ed.  Captain  A.  H. 
Markham,  l88o.  Cf.  Mr.  Coote's  note  on  tiie  New  Map,  Ixxxv.- 
xcv.  A  paper  on  the  subject  by  Mr.  Coote  also  appears  in  New  Shak- 
spere  Society's  Tansaciions,  1877-9,  pt.  i.  pp.  88-100. 

'■^  Diary,  Camden  Soc.  p.  18;  the  Elizabethan  Stage  Society 
repeated  the  play  on  the  same  stage  on  February  lO,  II,  and  12, 
1897.  ^  Bandello's  Novelle,  ii.  36. 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS  211 

as  in  '  Much  Ado,'  is  the  dominant  note  of  the  main 
plot  of  '  Twelfth  Night,'  but  Shakespeare  neutralises 
the  tone  of  sadness  by  his  mirthful  portrayal  of 
Malvolio,  Sir  Toby  Belch,  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek, 
Fabian,  the  clown  Feste,  and  Maria,  all  of  whom  are 
his  own  creations.  The  ludicrous  gravity  of  Malvolio 
proved  exceptionally  popular  on  the  stage. 

In  1 60 1  Shakespeare  made  a  new  departure  by 
drawing  a  plot  from  North's  noble  translation  of 
'Plutarch's  Lives.' ^  Plutarch  is  the  king  of  biogra- 
phers, and  the  deference  which  Shakespeare  paid  his 
work  by  adhering  to  the  phraseology  wherever  it  was 
practicable  illustrates  his  literary  discrimination.  On 
Plutarch's  lives  of  Julius  Caesar,  Brutus,  and  Antony, 
Shakespeare  based  his  historical  tragedy  of  'Julius 
Caesar.'  Weever,  in  1601,  in  his  '  Mirror  of  Martyrs,' 
'  Tuiius  plainly  refers  to  the  masterly  speech  in  the 
CEesar,'  Forum  at  Caesar's  funeral  which  Shakespeare 
^  °^'  put  into  Antony's  mouth.  There  is  no  sugges- 

tion of  the  speech  in  Plutarch;  hence  the  composition 
of  'Julius  Caesar'  may  be  held  to  have  preceded  the 
issue  of  Weever's  book  in  1601.  The  general  topic 
was  already  familiar  on  the  stage.  Polonius  told 
Hamlet  how,  when  he  was  at  the  university,  he  '  did 
enact  Julius  Caesar;  he  was  kill'd  in  the  Capitol: 
Brutus  kill'd  him.'  ^  A  play  of  the  same  title  was 
known  as  early  as  1589,  and  was  acted  in  1594  by 
Shakespeare's  company.  Shakespeare's  piece  is  a 
penetrating  study  of  political  life,  and,  although  the 

1  First  published  in  1579;    2iul  edit.  1595. 

2  Hamlet,  act  iii.  sc.  ii.  11.  109-10. 


212  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

nuirdcr  and  funeral  of  Cxsar  form  the  central  episode 
and  not  the  climax,  the  tragedy  is  thoroughly  well 
planned  and  balanced.  Cnesar  is  ironically  depicted 
in  his  dotage.  The  characters  of  Brutus,  Antony,  and 
Cassius,  the  real  heroes  of  the  action,  are  exhibited 
with  faultless  art.  The  fifth  act,  which  presents  the 
battle  of  Philippi  in  progress,  proves  ineffective  on 
the  stage,  but  the  reader  never  relaxes  his  interest  in 
the  fortunes  of  the  vanquished  Brutus,  whose  death 
is  the  catastrophe. 

While  '  Julius  Caesar '  was  winning  its  first  laurels 
on  the  stage,  the  fortunes  of  the  London  theatres  were 
menaced  by  two  manifestations  of  unreasoning  preju- 
dice on  the  part  of  the  public.  The  earlier  manifesta- 
tion, although  speciously  the  more  serious,  was  in  effect 
innocuous.  The  puritans  of  the  city  of  London  had 
long  agitated  for  the  suppression  of  all  theatrical  per- 
formances, and  it  seemed  as  if  the  agitators  triumphed 
when  they  induced  the  Privy  Council  on  June  22,  1600, 
to  issue  to  the  officers  of  the  Corporation  of  London 
and  to  the  justices  of  the  peace  of  Middlesex  and  Sur- 
rey an  order  forbidding  the  maintenance  of  more  than 
two  playhouses  ^one  in  Middlesex  (Alleyn's  newly 
erected  playhouse,  the  'P'ortune  '  in  Cripplegate),  and 
the  other  in  Surrey  (the  '  Globe '  on  the  Bankside). 
The  contemplated  restriction  would  have  deprived 
very  many  actors  of  employment,  and  driven  others  to 
seek  a  precarious  livelihood  in  the  provinces.  Happily, 
disaster  was  averted  by  the  failure  of  the  municipal 
authorities  and  the  magistrates  of  Surrey  and  Middle- 
sex to  make  the  order  operative.     All   the  London 


MATURITY  OF   GENIUS  213 

theatres  that  were  already  in  existence  went  on  their 
way  unchecked.^ 

More  calamitous  was  a  temporary  reverse  of  fort- 
une which  Shakespeare's  company,  in  common  with 
The  strife  the  Other  companies  of  adult  actors,  suffered 
aduifand  soon  afterwards  at  the  hands,  not  of  fanatical 
boy  actors,  enemies  of  the  drama,  but  of  playgoers  who 
were  its  avowed  supporters.  The  company  of  boy- 
actors,  chiefly  recruited  from  the  choristers  of  the 
Chapel  Royal,  and  known  as  '  the  Children  of  the 
Chapel,'  had  since  1597  been  installed  at  the  new 
theatre  in  Blackfriars,  and  after  1600  the  fortunes  of 
the  veterans,  who  occupied  rival  stages,  were  put  in 
jeopardy  by  the  extravagant  outburst  of  public  favour 
that  the  boys'  performances  evoked.  In  '  Hamlet,' 
the  play  which  followed  'Julius  Caesar,'  Shakespeare 
pointed  out  the  perils  of  the  situation.-     The  adult 

1  On  December  31,  1601,  the  Lords  of  the  Council  sent  letters  to  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  and  to  the  Magistrates  of  Surrey  and  Middlesex 
expressing  their  surprise  that  no  steps  had  yet  been  taken  to  limit  the 
number  of  playhouses  in  accordance  with  '  our  order  set  down  and 
prescribed  about  a  year  and  a  half  since.'  But  nothing  followed,  and 
no  more  was  heard  officially  of  the  Council's  order  until  1619,  when  the 
Corporation  of  London  remarked  on  its  practical  abrogation  at  the 
same  time  as  they  directed  the  suppression  (which  was  not  carried  out) 
of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre.  All  the  documents  on  this  subject  are  printed 
from  the  Privy  Council  Register  by  Halliwell-Phillipps,  i.  307-9. 

-  The  passage,  act  ii.  sc.  ii.  348-94,  which  deals  in  ample  detail 
with  the  subject,  only  appears  in  the  folio  version  of  1623.  In  the 
first  quarto  a  very  curt  reference  is  made  to  the  misfortunes  of  the 
'  tragedians  of  the  city  ' : 

y  faith,  my  lord,  noveltie  carries  it  away, 
For  the  principal  publike  audience  that 
Came  to  them  are  turned  to  private  playes 
And  to  the  humours  of  children. 

'  Private   playes '    were    plays    acted    by    amateurs,    with    whom    the 
Chillnii'  might  well  be  classed. 


214  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

actor.s,  Shakespeare  asserted,  were  prevented  from 
performing  in  London  through  no  falHng  off  in  their 
efficiency,  but  by  the  'late  innovation  '  of  the  children's 
vogue. ^  They  were  compelled  to  go  on  tour  in  the 
provinces,  at  the  expense  of  their  revenues  and  repu- 
tation, because  'an  aery  \_i.c.  nest]  of  children,  little 
eyases  [i.e.  young  hawks]  '  dominated  the  theatrical 
world,  and  monopolised  public  applause.  '  These 
are  now  the  fashion,'  the  dramatist  lamented,^  and  he 
made  the  topic  the  text  of  a  reflection  on  the  fickle- 
ness of  public  taste  : 

Hamlet.    Do  the  boys  carry  it  away  ? 

RosENCRANTZ.   Ay  that  they  do,  my  lord,  Hercules  and  his  load  too. 

Hamlet.  It  is  not  very  strange;  for  my  uncle  is  King  of  Denmark, 
and  those  that  would  make  mows  at  him  while  my  father  lived,  give 
twenty,  forty,  fifty,  a  hundred  ducats  apiece  for  his  picture  in  little. 

Jealousies  in  the  ranks  of  the  dramatists  accent- 
uated the  actors'  difficulties.  Ben  Jonson  was,  at  the 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  engaged  in  a  fierce 
personal  quarrel  with  two  of  his  fellow-dramatists, 
Marston  and  Dekker.  The  adult  actors  generally 
avowed  sympathy  with  Jonson's  foes.  Jonson,  by 
way  of  revenge,  sought  an  offensive  alliance  with  '  the 
Children  of  the  Chapel'  Under  careful  tuition  the 
boys  proved  capable  of  performing  much  the  same 
pieces  as  the  men.     To  '  the  children  '  Jonson  offered 

^  All  recent  commentators  follow  Steevens  in  interpreting  the  '  late 
innovation'  as  the  Order  of  the  Privy  Council  of  June  l6oo,  restricting 
the  number  of  the  London  playhouses  to  two;  but  that  order,  which 
was  never  put  in  force,  in  no  way  affected  the  actors'  fortunes.  The 
First  Quarto's  reference  to  the  perils  attaching  to  the  '  noveltie '  of  the 
hoys'  performances  indicates  the  true  meaning. 

2  Hamlet,  act  ii.  sc.  ii.  349-64. 


MATURITY   OF  GENIUS  21$ 

in  1600  his  comical  satire  of  '  Cynthia's  Revels,'  in 
which  he  held  up  to  ridicule  Dekker,  Marston,  and 
their  actor-friends.  The  play,  when  acted  by  'the 
children  '  at  the  Blackfriars  Theatre,  was  warmly 
welcomed  by  the  audience.  Next  year  Jonson 
repeated  his  manoeuvre  with  greater  effect.  He 
learnt  that  IMarston  and  Dekker  were  conspiring  with 
the  actors  of  Shakespeare's  company  to  attack  him 
in  a  piece  called  '  Satiro-Mastix,  or  the  Untrussing  of 
the  Humorous  Poet.'  He  anticipated  their  design 
by  producing,  again  with  '  the  Children  of  the  Chapel,' 
his  '  Poetaster,'  which  was  throughout  a  venomous 
invective  against  his  enemies  —  dramatists  and  actors 
alike.  Shakespeare's  company  retorted  by  producing 
Dekker  and  Marston's  '  Satiro-Mastix '  at  the  Globe 
Theatre  next  year.  But  Jonson's  action  had  given 
new  life  to  the  vogue  of  the  children.  Playgoers  took 
sides  in  the  struggle,  and  their  attention  was  for  a 
season  riveted,  to  the  exclusion  of  topics  more  ger- 
mane to  their  province,  on  the  actors'  and  dramatists' 
boisterous  war  of  personalities.^ 

1  At  the  moment  offensive  personalities  seemed  to  have  infected  all 
the  London  theatres.  On  ]\Iay  10,  1601,  the  Privy  Council  called  the 
attention  of  the  Middlesex  magistrates  to  the  abuse  covertly  levelled  by 
the  actors  of  the  '  Curtain '  at  gentlemen  '  of  good  desert  and  quality,' 
and  directed  the  magistrates  to  examine  all  plays  before  they  were 
produced  (^Privy  Coiuicit  Register').  Jonson  subsequently  issued  an 
'  apologetical  dialogue  '  (appended  to  printed  copies  of  the  Poetaster), 
in  which  he  somewhat  truculently  qualified  his  hostility  to  the 
players : 

Now  for  the  players  'tis  true  I  tax'd  them 

And  yet  but  some,  and  those  so  sparingly 

As  all  the  rest  might  have  sat  still  unquestioned. 

Had  they  but  had  the  wit  or  conscience 


2l6  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

In  his  detailed  references  to  the  conflict  in 
Shake-  '  Hamlet '  Shakespeare  protested  against  the 
spearc's        abusive  comments  on  the  men-actors  of  *  the 

references 

to  the  common   stages '  or    public    theatres  which 

struggle.  were  put]into  the  children's  mouths.  Rosen- 
crantz  declared  that  the  children  '  so  berattle  [i.e.  assail] 
the  common  stages  —  so  they  call  them  —  that  many- 
wearing  rapiers  are  afraid  of  goose-quills,  and  dare 
scarce  come  thither  \_i.e.  to  the  public  theatres].' 
Hamlet  in  pursuit  of  the  theme  pointed  out  that  the 
writers  who  encouraged  the  vogue  of  the  '  child- 
actors  '  did  them  a  poor  service,  because  when  the 
boys  should  reach  men's  estate  they  would  run  the 
risk,  if  they  continued  on  the  stage,  of  the  same  insults 
and  neglect  which  now  threatened  their  seniors. 

Hamlet.  What  are  they  children?  Who  maintains  'em?  how  are 
they  escoted  \_i.e.  paid]?  Will  they  pursue  the  quality  [i.e.  the  actor's 
profession]  no  longer  than  they  can  sing?  Will  they  not  say  afterwards, 
if  they  should  grow  themselves  to  common  players  —  as  it  is  most  like, 
if  their  means  are  no  better  —  their  writers  do  them  wrong  to  make 
them  exclaim  against  their  own  succession? 

ROSENCRANTZ.  Faith,  there  has  been  much  to  do  on  both  sides, 
and  the  nation  holds  it  no  sin  to  tarre  [z'.f.  incite]  them  to  controversy; 
there  was  for  a  while  no  money  bid  for  argument,  unless  the  poet  and 
the  player  went  to  cuffs  in  the  question. 

Hamlet.   Is  it  possible? 

GuiLDENSTERN.    O,  there  has  been  much  throwing  about  of  brains ! 


To  think  well  of  themselves.     But  impotent  they 

Thought  each  man's  vice  belonged  to  their  vk-hole  tribe; 

And  much  good  do  it  them.     What  they  have  done  against  me 

I  am  not  moved  with,  if  it  gave  them  meat 

Or  got  them  clothes,  'tis  well;  that  was  their  end, 

Only  amongst  them  I  am  sorry  for 

Some  better  natures  by  the  rest  so  drawn 

To  run  in  that  vile  line. 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS  21/ 

Shakespeare  clearly  favoured  the  adult  actors  in 
their  rivalry  with  the  boys,  but  he  wrote  more  like  a 
disinterested  spectator  than  an  active  partisan  when 
he  made  specific  reference  to  the  strife  between  the 
poet  Ben  Jonson  and  the  players.  In  the  prologue 
to  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  which  he  penned  in  1603, 
he  warned  his  hearers  with  obvious  allusion  to  Ben 
Jonson's  battles  that  he  hesitated  to  identify  himself 
with  either  actor  or  poet.^  Passages  in  Ben  Jonson's 
'Poetaster,'  moreover,  pointedly  suggest  that  Shake- 
speare cultivated  so  assiduously  an  attitude  of  neutral- 
ity that  Jonson  acknowledged  him  to  be  qualified  for 
the  role  of  peacemaker.  The  gentleness  of  disposition 
with  which  Shakespeare  was  invariably  credited  by  his 
friends  would  have  well  fitted  him  for  such  an  office. 

Jonson  figures  personally  in  the  '  Poetaster  '  under 
the  name  of  Horace.  Episodically  Horace  and  his 
Jonson's  fricnds,  Tibullus  and  Gallus,  eulogise  the 
'Poetaster.'  vvork  and  genius  of  another  character,  Virgil, 
in  terms  so  closely  resembling  those  which  Jonson 
is  known  to  have  applied  to  Shakespeare  that  they 
may  be  regarded  as  intended  to  apply  to  him  (act 
V.  sc.  i.).  Jonson  points  out  that  Virgil,  by  his  pene- 
trating intuition,  achieved  the  great  effects  which 
others  laboriously  sought  to  reach  through  rules  of 
art. 

His  learning  labours  not  the  school-like  gloss 
That  most  consists  of  echoing  words  and  terms  .  .  . 
Nor  any  long  or  far-fetched  circumstance  — 
Wrapt  in  the  curious  generalities  of  arts  — 

1  See  p.  229,  note  i,  ad.  fin. 


2l8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

But  a  direct  and  analytic  sum 
Of  all  the  worth  and  first  effects  of  arts. 
And  for  his  poesy,  'tis  so  rammed  with  life 
That  it  shall  gather  strength  of  life  with  being, 
And  live  hereaftef,  more  admired  than  now. 

Tibullus  gives  Virgil  equal  credit  for  having  in  his 
writings  touched  with  telling  truth  upon  every  vicis- 
situde of  human  existence. 

That  which  he  hath  writ 
Is  with  such  judgment  laboured  and  distilled 
Through  all  the  needful  uses  of  our  lives 
That,  could  a  man  remember  but  his  lines, 
He  should  not  touch  at  any  serious  point 
But  he  might  breathe  his  spirit  out  of  him. 

Finally,  Virgil  in  the  play  is  nominated  by  Caesar 
to  act  as  judge  between  Horace  and  his  libellers,  and 
he  advises  the  administration  of  purging  pills  to  the 
offenders.  That  course  of  treatment  is  adopted  with 
satisfactory  results.^ 

As  against  this  interpretation,  one  contemporary 
witness  has  been  held  to  testify  that  Shakespeare 
stemmed  the  tide  of  Jonson's  embittered  activity  by 
no  peace-making  interposition,  but  by  joining  his 
foes,  and  by  administering,  with  their  aid,  the  identical 
course  of  medicine  which  in  the  '  Poetaster '  is  meted 
out  to  his  enemies.  In  the  sameyear(i6oi)as  the 'Poet- 
aster '  was  produced,  '  The  Return  from  Parnassus ' 
—  a  third  piece  in  a  trilogy  of  plays  —  was  '  acted  by 

1  The  proposed  identification  of  Virgil  in  the  'Poetaster'  with 
Chapman  has  little  to  recommend  it.  Chapman's  literary  work  did 
not  justify  the  commendations  which  were  bestowed  on  Virgil  in  the 
play. 


MATURITY   OF  GENIUS  219 

the  students  in  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge.'  In 
this  piece,  as  in  its  two  predecessors,  Shakespeare 
received,  both  as  a  playwright  and  a  poet,  high  com- 
mendation, although  his  poems  were  judged  to  reflect 
somewhat  too  largely  '  love's  lazy  foolish  languish- 
ment.'  The  actor  Burbage  was  introduced  in  his 
own  name  instructing  an  aspirant  to  the  actor's 
profession  in  the  part  of  Richard  the  Third,  and  the 
familiar  lines  from  Shakespeare's  play  — 

Now  is  the  winter  of  our  discon'tent 

Made  glorious  summer  by  this  sun  of  York  — 

are  recited  by  the  pupil  as  part  of  his  lesson.  Subse- 
quently in  a  prose  dialogue  between  Shakespeare's 
fellow-actors  Burbage  and  Kempe,  Kempe  remarks 
of  University  dramatists,  '  Why,  here's  our  fellow 
Shakespeare  puts  them  all  down ;  aye,  and  Ben  Jon- 
son,  too.  O !  that  Ben  Jonson  is  a  pestilent  fellow. 
He  brought  up  Horace,  giving  the  poets  a  pill ;  but 
our  fellow  Shakespeare  hath  given  him  a  purge  that 
made  him  bewray  his  credit.'  Burbage  adds  :  '  He  is 
a  shrewd  fellow,  indeed.'  This  perplexing  passage 
has  been  held  to  mean  that  Shakespeare  took  a 
decisive  part  against  Jonson  in  the  controversy  with 
Dekker  and  Dekker's  actor-friends.  But  such  a  con- 
shake-  clusiou  is  nowhcre  corroborated,  and  seems 
speares       |-q  j^g  confuted   by  the   eulogies   of   Virgil 

alleged  .  J  &  to 

partisan-  m  the  '  Poetastcr  '  and  by  the  general  hand- 
ship.  ijjjg  Qf  |-jjg  theme  in  '  Hamlet.'     The  words 

quoted  from  '  The  Return  from  Parnassus '  hardly 
admit  of  a  literal  interpretation.  Probably  the 
'  purge '  that  Shakespeare  was  alleged  by  the  author 


220  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

of  '  The  Return  from  Parnassus  '  to  have  given  Jonson 
meant  no  more  than  that  Shakespeare  had  signally 
outstripped  Jonson  in  popular  esteem.  As  the  author 
of  'Julius  Cxsar,'  he  had  just  proved  his  command 
of  topics  that  were  peculiarly  suited  to  Jonson's  vein,^ 
and  had  in  fact  outrun  his  churlish  comrade  on  his 
own  ground. 

1  The  most  scornful  criticism  that  Jonson  is  known  to  have  passed 
on  any  composition  by  Shakespeare  was  aimed  at  a  passage  in  Julius 

Civsai-,  and  as  Jonson's  attack  is  barely  justifiable  on  literary  grounds, 
it  is  fair  to  assume  that  the  play  was  distasteful  to  him  from  other  con- 
siderations.      '  Many    times,'    Jonson    wrote    of    Shakespeare    in    his 

Timber,  '  hee  fell  into  those  things  [which]  could  not  escape  laughter : 
As  when  hee  said  in  the  person  of  CcEsar,  one  speaking  to  him  {^i.e. 
Cjesar]  ;  Ccesar,  thou  dost  me  wrong.  Hee  \i.e.  Gesar]  replyed  :  Ccesar 
did  never  wrong,  butt  with  just  cause :  and  such  like,  which  were 
ridiculous.'  Jonson  derisively  quoted  the  same  passage  in  the  induc- 
tion to  7'he  Staple  of  Netus  (1625)  :  '  Cry  you  mercy,  you  did  not  wrong 
but  with  just  cause.'  Possibly  the  words  that  were  ascribed  by  Jonson 
to  Shakespeare's  character  of  Casar  appeared  in  the  original  version  of 
the  play,  but  owing  perhaps  to  Jonson's  captious  criticism  they  do  not 
figure  in  the  Folio  version,  the  sole  version  that  has  reached  us.  The  only 
words  there  that  correspond  with  Jonson's  quotation  are  Ciesar's  remark  : 

Know,  Caesar  doth  not  wrong,  nor  without  cause 
Will  he  be  satisfied 

(act  iii.  sc.  i.  11.  47-8).  The  rhythm  and  sense  seem  to  require  the  re- 
insertion after  the  word  '  wrong '  of  the  phrase  '  but  with  just  cause,' 
which  Jonson  needlessly  reprobated.  Leonard  Digges  (i  588-1635), 
one  of  Shakespeare's  admiring  critics,  emphasises  the  superior  popu- 
larity of  Shakespeare's  Julius  Ctrsar  in  the  theatre  to  Ben  Jonson's 
Roman  play  of  Catiline,  in  his  eulogistic  lines  on  Shakespeare 
(published  after  Digges's  death  in  the  1640  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
J'oems)  : 

So  have  I  seen  when  Csesar  would  appear, 

And  on  the  stage  at  half-sword  parley  were 

Brutus  and  Cassius  —  oh,  how  the  audience 

Were  ravish'd,  with  what  wonder  they  went  thence; 

When  some  new  day  they  would  not  brook  a  line 

Of  tedious,  though  well-laboured,  Catiline. 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  221 

At  any  rate,  in  the  tragedy  that  Shakespeare 
brought  out  in  the  year  following  the  production  of 
'Julius  Caesar,'  he  finally  left  Jonson  and  all  friends 
and  foes  lagging  far  behind  both  in  achievement  and 
reputation.  This  new  exhibition  of  the  force  of  his 
genius  re-established,  too,  the  ascendency  of  the  adult 
actors  who  interpreted  his  work,  and  the  boys'  su- 
premacy was  quickly  brought  to  an  end.  In  1602 
Shakespeare  produced  'Hamlet,'  'that  piece  of  his 
which  most  kindled  English  hearts.'  The  story  of  the 
•  Hamlet;  Prince  of  Denmark  had  been  popular  on  the 
1602.  stage  as  early  as  1589  in  a  lost  dramatic  ver- 

sion by  another  writer  —  doubtless  Thomas  Kyd,  whose 
tragedies  of  blood,  '  The  Spanish  Tragedy  '  and  '  Jero- 
nimo,'  long  held  the  Elizabethan  stage.  To  that  lost 
version  of  '  Hamlet '  Shakespeare's  tragedy  certainly 
owed  much.^     The  story  was  also  accessible  in  the 

1  I  wrote  on  this  point  in  the  article  on  Thomas  Kyd  in  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  (vol.  xxxi.):  'The  argument  in 
favour  of  Kyd's  authorship  of  a  pre-Shakespearean  play  (now  lost)  on 
the  subject  of  Hamlet  deserves  attention.  Nash  in  1589,  when 
describing  [in  his  preface  to  I\Ienaphon'\  the  typical  literary  hack, 
who  at  almost  every  point  suggests  Kyd,  notices  that  in  addition  to 
his  other  accomplishments  "  he  will  afford  you  whole  Hamlets,  I 
should  say  handfuls  of  tragical  speeches."  Other  references  in  popular 
tracts  and  plays  of  like  date  prove  that  in  an  early  tragedy  concern- 
ing Hamlet  there  was  a  ghost  who  cried  repeatedly,  "  Hamlet, 
revenge !  "  and  that  this  expression  took  rank  in  Elizabethan  slang 
beside  the  vernacular  quotations  from  [Kyd's  sanguinary  tragedy  of] 
Jeronimo,  such  as  "  What  outcry  calls  me  from  my  naked  bed,"  and 
"Beware,  Hieronimo,  go  by,  go  by."  The  resemblance  between  the 
stories  of  Hamlet  and  Jeronimo  suggests  that  the  former  would  have 
supplied'  Kyd  with  a  congenial  plot.  In  Jeronimo  a  father  seeks  to 
avenge  his  son's  murder;    in  Hamlet  the  theme  is  the  same  with  the 


222  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

'  Histoires  Tragiqucs,'  of  Belleforest,  who  adapted  it 
from  the  '  Historia  Danica'  of  Saxo  Grammaticus.^ 
No  English  translation  of  Belleforest's  '  Hystorie  of 
Hamblet'  appeared  before  1608;  Shakespeare  doubt- 
less read  it  in  the  French.  But  his  authorities  give 
little  hint  of  what  was  to  emerge  from  his  study  of 
them. 

Burbage  created  the  title-part  in  Shakespeare's 
tragedy,  and  its  success  on  the  stage  led  to  the  play's 
publication  immediately  afterwards.  The  bibliography 
of  '  Hamlet '  offers  a  puzzling  problem.  On  July  26, 
1602,  'A  Book  called  the  Revenge  of  Hamlet,  Prince 
The  prob-  of  Denmark,  as  it  was  lately  acted  by  the 
em  o  Its      Lqj-(J  Chamberlain  his  Servants,'  was  entered 

publica-  ' 

tion.  on  the  Stationers'  Company's  Registers,  and 

it  was  published  in  quarto  next  year  by  N[icholas] 

position  of  father  and  son  reversed.  In  Jeronimo  the  avenging  fathet 
resolves  to  reach  his  end  by  arranging  for  the  performance  of  a  play  in 
the  presence  of  those  whom  he  suspects  of  the  murder  of  his  son,  and 
there  is  good  ground  for  crediting  the  lost  tragedy  of  Hamlet  with  a 
similar  play-scene.  Shakespeare's  debt  to  the  lost  tragedy  is  a  matter 
of  conjecture,  but  the  stilted  speeches  of  the  play-scene  in  his  Hamlet 
read  like  intentional  parodies  of  Kyd's  bombastic  efforts  in  The  Spanish 
Tragedy,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  they  were  directly  suggested  by 
an  almost  identical  episode  in  a  lost  Hamlet  by  the  same  author.* 
Shakespeare  elsewhere  shows  acquaintance  with  Kyd's  work.  He 
places  in  the  mouth  of  Kit  Sly  in  The  Taming  of  The  Shrew  the  current 
phrase  '  Go  by,  Jeronimy,'  from  The  Spanish  Tragedy.  Shakespeare 
quotes  verbatim  a  line  from  the  same  piece  in  Aluch  Ado  About  iVothing 
(l.  i.  271)  :  'In  time  the  savage  bull  doth  bear  the  yoke;'  but  Kyd  prac- 
tically borrowed  that  line  from  Watson's  Passionate  Centtirie  (No.  xlvii.), 
where  Shakespeare  may  have  met  it. 

1  Cf.  Gericke  und  Max  Moltke,  Hamlet-Qiiellen,  Leipzig,  1 88 1. 
The  story  was  absorbed  into  Scandinavian  mythology :  cf.  Ambales- 
Saga,  edited  by  Mr.  Israel  Gollancz,  1S98. 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS  223 

L[ing]  and  John  Trundell.  The  title-page  stated  that 
the  piece  had  been  '  acted  divers  times  in  the  city  of 
„,    ,-.  ,      London,  as  also  in  the  two  Universities  of 

Ine  rirst  ' 

Quarto,  Cambridge  and  Oxford  and  elsewhere.'  The 
^  °^'  text    here    appeared    in    a   rough    and   im- 

perfect state.  In  all  probability  it  was  a  piratical 
and  carelessly  transcribed  copy  of  Shakespeare's  first 
draft  of  the  play,  in  which  he  drew  largely  on  the 
older  piece. 

A  revised  version,  printed  from  a  more  complete 
and  accurate  manuscript,  was  published  in  1604  as 
'The  Tragical  History  of  Hamlet  Prince  of  Denmark, 
by  William  Shakespeare,  newly  imprinted  and  en- 
The  larged  to  almost  as  much  again  as  it  was, 

QuTno  according  to  the  true  and  perfect  copy.'  This 
1604.  was  printed  by  I[ames]   R[oberts]  for  the 

publisher  N[icholas]  L[ing].  The  concluding  words 
—  '  according  to  the  true  and  perfect  copy  '  —  of  the 
title-page  of  the  second  quarto  were  intended  to 
stamp  its  predecessor  as  surreptitious  and  unauthentic. 
But  it  is  clear  that  the  second  quarto  was  not  a  perfect 
version  of  the  play.  It  was  itself  printed  from  a  copy 
which  had  been  curtailed  for  acting  purposes. 

A  third  version  (long  the  tcxtns  receptus)  figured 
in  the  folio  of  1623.  Here  many  passages,  not  to  be 
found  in  the  quartos,  appear  for  the  first  time,  but  a 
The  Folio  fcw  otlicrs  that  appear  in  the  quartos  are 
Version.  omitted.  The  folio  text  probably  came 
nearest  to  the  original  manuscript;  but  it,  too,  followed 
an  acting  copy  which  had  been  abbreviated  some- 
what less  drastically  than  the  second  quarto  and  in  a 


224  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

different  fashion.^  Theobald  in  his  '  Shakespeare 
Restored'  (1726)  made  the  first  scholarly  attempt  to 
form  a  text  from  a  collation  of  the  First  Folio  with 
the  second  quarto,  and  Theobald's  text  with  further 
embellishments  by  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer,  Edward 
Capell,  and  the  Cambridge  editors  of  1866,  is  now 
generally  adopted. 

'  Hamlet '  was  the  only  drama  by  Shakespeare 
that  was  acted  in  his  lifetime  at  the  two  Universities. 
It  has  since  attracted  more  attention  from  actors, 
playgoers,  and  readers  of  all  capacities  than  any  other 
of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Its  world-wide  popularity 
„      ,    .,      from  its  author's  day  to  our  own,  when  it  is 

Popularity  ■>  ' 

of  •  Ham-  as  Warmly  welcomed  in  the  theatres  of  France 
and  Germany  as  in  those  of  England  and 
America,  is  the  most  striking  of  the  many  testimonies 
to  the  eminence  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  instinct. 
At  a  first  glance  there  seems  little  in  the  play  to 
attract  the  uneducated  or  the  unreflecting.  '  Hamlet ' 
is  mainly  a  psychological  effort,  a  study  of  the  reflec- 
tive temperament  in  excess.  The  action  develops 
slowly;  at  times  there  is  no  movement  at  all.  Except 
'  Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  which  exceeds  it  by  sixty 
lines,  the  piece  is  the  longest  of  Shakespeare's  plays, 
while  the  total  length  of  Hamlet's  speeches  far  exceeds 
that  of  those  allotted  by  Shakespeare  to  any  other 
of    his    characters.      Humorous    relief  is,   it  is  true, 

1  Cf.  Hamlet  —  parallel  texts  of  the  first  and  second  quarto,  and 
first  folio  —  ed.  Wilhelm  Victor,  Marburg,  1 891;  The  Devottshire 
Hamlets,  i860,  parallel  texts  of  the  two  quartos  edited  by  Mr.  Sam 
Timmins;  Hamlet,  ed.  George  Macdonald,  1885,  a  study  with  the  text 
of  the  folio. 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS  225 

effectively  supplied  to  the  tragic  theme  by  Polonius 
and  the  grave-diggers,  and  if  the  topical  references  to 
contemporary  theatrical  history  (11.  ii.  350-89)  could 
only  count  on  an  appreciative  reception  from  an 
Elizabethan  audience,  the  pungent  censure  of  actors' 
perennial  defects  is  calculated  to  catch  the  ear  of  the 
average  playgoer  of  all  ages.  But  it  is  not  to  these 
subsidiary  features  that  the  universality  of  the  play's 
vogue  can  be  attributed.  It  is  the  intensity  of 
interest  which  Shakespeare  contrives  to  excite  in 
the  character  of  the  hero  that  explains  the  position 
of  the  play  in  popular  esteem.  The  play's  un- 
rivalled power  of  attraction  lies  in  the  pathetic 
fascination  exerted  on  minds  of  almost  every  calibre 
by  the  central  figure  —  a  high-born  youth  of  chivalric 
instincts  and  finely  developed  intellect,  who,  when 
stirred  to  avenge  in  action  a  desperate  private  wrong, 
is  foiled  by  introspective  workings  of  the  brain  that 
paralyse  the  will. 

Although  the  difficulties  of  determining  the  date 
of  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  are  very  great,  there  are 
'Troiius  many  grounds  for  assigning  its  composition 
and  to  the  early  days  of  1603.     In  1599  Dekker 

and  Chettle  were  engaged  by  Henslowe  to 
prepare  for  the  Earl  of  Nottingham's  company — a 
rival  of  Shakespeare's  company  —  a  play  of  'Troilus 
and  Cressida,'  of  which  no  trace  survives.  It  doubtless 
suggested  the  topic  to  Shakespeare.  On  February  7, 
1602-3,  James  Roberts  obtained  a  license  for  'the 
booke  of  Troilus  and  Cresseda  as  yt  is  acted  by  my 

Q 


226  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Lord  Chamberlens  men,'  i.e.  Shakespeare's  company.- 
Roberts  printed  the  second  quarto  of  '  Hamlet'  and 
others  of  Shakespeare's  plays  ;  but  his  effort  to  pub- 
lish '  Troilus '  proved  abortive,  owing  to  the  interpo- 
sition of  the  players.  Roberts's  '  book  '  was  probably 
Shakespeare-'s  play.  The  metrical  characteristics 
of  Shakespeare's  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  —  the  reg- 
ularity of  the  blank  verse  —  powerfully  confirm  the 
date  of  composition  which  Roberts's  license  suggests. 
Six  years  later,  however,  on  January  28,  1608-9,  a 
new  license  for  the  issue  of  '  a  booke  called  the  his- 
tory of  Troylus  and  Cressida '  was  granted  to  other 
publishers,  Richard  Bonian  and  Henry  Walley,^  and 
these  publishers,  more  fortunate  than  Roberts,  soon 
printed  a  quarto  with  Shakespeare's  full  name  as 
author.  The  text  seems  fairly  authentic,  but  excep- 
tional obscurity  attaches  to  ttie  circumstances  of 
the  publication.  Some  copies  of  the  book  bear  an 
ordinary  type  of  title-page  stating  that  the  piece  was 
printed  '  as  it  was  acted  by  the  King's  majesties 
servants  at  the  Globe.'  But  in  other  copies,  which 
differ  in  no  way  in  regard  to  the  text  of  the  play, 
there  was  substituted  for  this  title-page  a  more  pre- 
tentious announcement  running  :  '  The  famous  His- 
toric of  Troylus  and  Cresseid,  excellently  expressing 
the  beginning  of  their  loues  with  the  conceited  wooing 
of  Pandarus,  prince  of  Lacia.'  After  this  pompous 
title-page  there  was  inserted,  for  the  first  and  only 
time  in  the  case  of  a  play  by  Shakespeare  that  was 

1  Arber's  Transcript  of  the  Stationers'  Registers,  iii.  226. 

2  lb.  iii.  400. 


MATURITY  OF  GENIUS  22/ 

published  in  his  lifetime,  an  advertisement  or  preface. 
In  this  interpolated  page  an  anonymous  scribe,  writ- 
ing in  the  name  of  the  publishers,  paid  bombastic 
and  high-flown  compliments  to  Shakespeare  as  a 
writer  of  '  comedies,'  and  defiantly  boasted  that  the 
'grand  possessers  '  —  i.e.  the  owners  —  of  the  manu- 
script deprecated  its  publication.  By  way  of  enhancing 
the  value  of  what  were  obviously  stolen  wares,  it  was 
falsely  added  that  the  piece  was  new  and  unacted. 
This  address  was  possibly  the  brazen  reply  of  the 
publishers  to  a  more  than  usually  emphatic  protest 
on  the  part  of  players  or  dramatist  against  the  print- 
ing of  the  piece.  The  editors  of  the  Folio  evinced 
distrust  of  the  quarto  edition  by  printing  their  text 
from  a  different  copy  showing  many  deviations, 
which  were  not  always  for  the  better. 

The  work,  which  in  point  of  construction  shows 
signs  of  haste,  and  in  style  is  exceptionally  unequal, 
is  the  least  attractive  of  the  efforts  of  Shakespeare's 
middle  life.  The  story  is  based  on  a  romantic  legend 
Treatment  *^^  ^^"^^  Trojan  War,  which  is  of  mediaeval 
of  the  origin.  Shakespeare  had  possibly  read  Chap- 

man's translation  of  Homer's  '  Iliad,'  but  he 
owed  his  plot  to  Chaucer's  '  Troilus  and  Cresseid  '  and 
Lydgate's  'Troy  Book.'  In  defiance  of  his  authori- 
ties he  presented  Cressida  as  a  heartless  coquette ; 
the  poets  who  had  previously  treated  her  story  — 
Boccaccio,  Chaucer,  Lydgate,  and  Robert  Henryson 
—  had  imagined  her  as  a  tender-hearted,  if  frail, 
beauty,  with  claims  on  their  pity  rather  than  on  their 
scorn.     But  Shakespeare's  innovation  is  dramatically 


228  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

effective,  and  accords  with  strictly  moral  canons. 
The  charge  frequently  brought  against  the  dramatist 
that  in  '  Troilus  and  Cressida  '  he  cynically  invested 
the  Greek  heroes  of  classical  antiquity  with  con- 
temptible characteristics  is  ill  supported  by  the  text 
of  the  play.  Ulysses,  Nestor,  and  Agamemnon  figure 
in  Shakespeare's  play  as  brave  generals  and  sagacious 
statesmen,  and  in  their  speeches  Shakespeare  con- 
centrated a  marvellous  wealth  of  pithily  expressed 
philosophy,  much  of  which  has  fortunately  obtained 
proverbial  currency.  Shakespeare's  conception  of 
the  Greeks  followed  traditional  lines  except  in  the 
case  of  Achilles,  whom  he  transforms  into  a  brutal 
coward.  And  that  portrait  quite  legitimately  inter- 
preted the  selfish,  unreasoning,  and  exorbitant  pride 
with  which  the  warrior  was  credited  by  Homer  and 
his  imitators. 

Shakespeare's  treatment  of  his  theme  cannot 
therefore  be  fairly  construed,  as  some  critics  construe 
it,  into  a  petty-minded  protest  against  the  honour 
paid  to  the  ancient  Greeks  and  to  the  form  and  sen- 
timent of  their  literature  by  more  learned  dramatists  of 
the  day,  like  Ben  Jonson  and  Chapman.  Although 
Shakespeare  knew  the  Homeric  version  of  the  Trojan 
war,  he  worked  in  'Troilus  and  Cressida'  upon  a 
mediaeval  romance,  which  was  practically  unin- 
fluenced either  for  good  or  evil  by  the  classical 
spirit.^ 

1  Less  satisfactory  is  the  endeavour  that  has  been  made  by  Mr.  F.  G. 
Fleay  and  Mr.  George  Wyndham  to  treat  Troilus  and  Cressida  as  Shake- 
speare's contribution  to  the  embittered  controversy  of  1 601-2,  between 


MATURITY   OF  GENIUS  229 

Despite  the  association  of  Shakespeare's  company 
with  the  rebellion  of  1601,  and  its  difificulties  with  the 
children  of  the  Chapel  Royal,  he  and  his  fellow-actors 

Jonson  and  Marston  and  Dekker  and  their  actor-friends,  and  to  represent 
it  as  a  pronouncement  against  Jonson.  According  to  this  fanciful  view, 
Shakespeare  held  up  Jonson  to  savage  ridicule  in  Ajax,  while  in  Thersites 
he  denounced  Marston,  despite  Marston's  intermittent  antagonism 
to  Jonson,  which  entitled  him  to  freedom  from  attack  by  Jonson's 
foes.  The  appearance  of  the  word  '  mastic  '  in  the  line  (l.  iii.  73) 
'  When  rank  Thersites  opes  his  mastic  jaws '  is  treated  as  proof 
of  Shakespeare's  identification  of  Thersites  with  Marston,  who 
used  the  pseudonym  'Therio-mastix'  in  his  Scourge  of  Villainy. 
It  would  be  as  reasonable  to  identify  him  with  Dekker,  who 
wrote  the  greater  part  of  Satiro-niasiix,  'Mastic'  is  doubtless  an 
adjective  formed  without  recondite  significance  from  the  substantive 
'  mastic,'  i.e.  the  gum  commonly  used  at  the  time  for  stopping  decayed 
teeth.  No  hypothesis  of  a  polemical  intention  is  needed  to  account  for 
Shakespeare's  conception  of  Ajax  or  Thersites.  There  is  no  trait  in 
either  character  as  depicted  by  Shakespeare  which  a  reading  of  Chap- 
man's Homer  would  fail  to  suggest.  The  controversial  interpretation  of 
the  play  is  in  conflict  with  chronology  (for  Troilus  cannot,  on  any  show- 
ing, be  assigned  to  the  period  of  the  war  between  Jonson  and  Dekker, 
in  1601-2),  and  it  seems  confuted  by  the  facts  and  arguments  already 
adduced  in  the  discussion  of  the  theatrical  conflict  (see  pp.  213-19). 
If  more  direct  disproof  be  needed,  it  may  be  found  in  Shakespeare's 
prologue  to  Troilus,  where  there  is  a  good-humoured  and  expressly 
pacific  allusion  to  the  polemical  aims  of  Jonson's  Poetaster.  Jonson 
had  introduced  into  his  play  '  an  armed  prologue '  on  account,  he 
asserted,  of  his  enemies'  menaces.  Shakespeare,  after  describing  in 
his  prologue  to  Troilus  the  progress  of  the  Trojan  war  before  his  story 
opened,  added  that  his  '  prologue '  presented  itself  '  arw'i/,'  not  to 
champion  '  author's  pen  or  actor's  voice,'  but  simply  to  announce  in  a 
guise  befitting  the  warlike  subject-matter  that  the  play  began  in  the 
middle  of  the  conflict  between  Greek  and  Trojan,  and  not  at  the  begin- 
ning. These  words  of  Shakespeare  put  out  of  court  any  interpretation 
of  Shakespeare's  play  that  would  represent  it  as  a  contribution  to  the 
theatrical  controversy. 


230  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

retained  its  hold  on  Court  favour  till  the  close  of  Eliza- 
Queen  beth's  reign.  As  late  as  February  2,  1603, 
Elizabeth's  ^\^q  company  entertained  the  dying  Queen 
March  26,  at  Richmond.  Her  death  on  March  26, 
1603.  1603,  drew  from  Shakespeare's  early  eulo- 

gist, Chettle,  a  vain  appeal  to  him  under  the  fanciful 
name  of  Melicert,  to 

Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one  sable  teare, 
To  mourne  her  death  that  graced  his  desert, 
And  to  his  laies  opened  her  royal  eare.^ 

But  except  on  sentimental  grounds,  the  Queen's  death 
justified  no  lamentation  on  the  part  of  Shakespeare. 
On  the  withdrawal  of  one  royal  patron  he  and  his 
friends  at  once  found  another,  who  proved  far  more 
liberal  and  appreciative. 

On  May  19,  1603,  James  I,  very  soon  after  his 
accession,  extended  to  Shakespeare  and  other  mem- 
bers of  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company  a  very 
marked  and  valuable  recognition.  To  them  he 
granted  under  royal  letters  patent  a  license  'freely 
to  use  and  exercise  the  arte  and  facultie  of  playing 
comedies,  tragedies,  histories,  enterludes,  moralls, 
pastoralles,  stage-plaies,  and  such  other  like  as  they 
have  already  studied,  or  hereafter  shall  use  or  studie 
as  well  for  the  recreation  of  our  loving  subjectes 
as  for  our  solace  and  pleasure,  when  we  shall  thinke 
good  to  see  them  during  our  pleasure.'  The  Globe 
Theatre  was  noted  as  the  customary  scene  of  their 
labours,  but  permission  was  granted  to  them  to  per- 

^  EnglaniVs  Alonrtting  Garment,  1603,  sign,  D.  3. 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS  23  I 

form  in  the  town-hall  or  moot-hall  of  any  country 
James  Is  tovvn.  Nine  actors  are  named.  Lawrence 
patronage.  Fletcher  stands  first  on  the  list;  he  had 
already  performed  before  James  in  Scotland  in  1599 
and  1 60 1.  Shakespeare  comes  second  and  Burbage 
third.  The  company  to  which  they  belonged  was 
thenceforth  styled  the  King's  company ;  its  members 
became  'the  King's  Servants,'  and  they  took  rank  with 
the  Grooms  of  the  Chamber.^  Shakespeare's  plays 
were  thenceforth  repeatedly  porformed  in  James's 
presence,  and  Oldys  related  that  James  wrote  Shake- 
speare a  letter  in  his  own  hand,  which  was  at  one 
time  in  the  possession  of  Sir  William  D'Avenant, 
and  afterwards,  according  to  Lintot,  in  that  of  John 
Sheffield,  first  duke  of  Buckingham. 

In  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1603  the  prevalence 
of  the  plague  led  to  the  closing  of  the  theatres  in 
London.  The  King's  players  were  compelled  to 
make  a  prolonged  tour  in  the  provinces,  which 
entailed  some  loss  of  income.  For  two  months  from 
the  third  week  in  October,  the  Court  was  tempo- 
rarily installed  at  Wilton,  the  residence  of  William 
Herbert,  third  earl  of  Pembroke,  and  late  in  Novem- 
ber the  company  was  summoned  by  the  royal  officers 

1  At  the  same  time  the  earl  of  Worcester's  company  was  taken 
into  the  Queen's  patronage,  and  its  members  were  known  as  '  the 
Queen's  servants,'  while  the  earl  of  Nottingham's  company  was  taken 
into  the  patronage  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  its  members  were 
known  as  the  Prince's  servants.  This  extended  patronage  of  actors  by 
the  royal  family  was  noticed  as  especially  honourable  to  the  King  by  one 
of  his  contemporary  panegyrists,  Gilbert  Dugdale,  in  his  Tiirie  Trium- 
pliant,  1604,  sig.  B. 


232  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

to  perform  in  the  royal  presence.  The  actors  travelled 
from  Mortlake  to  Salisbury  '  unto  the  Courte  afore- 
saide,'  and  their  performance  took  place  at  Wilton 
House  on  December  2.  They  received  next  day 
*  upon  the  Councells  warrant '  the  large  sum  of  30/. 
'  by  way  of  his  majesties  reward.'  ^  Many  other 
gracious  marks  of  royal  favour  followed.  On  March 
15,  1604,  Shakespeare  and  eight  other  actors  of  the 
company  walked  from  the  Tower  of  London  to  West- 
minster in  the  procession  which  accompanied  the 
King  on  his  formal  entry  into  London.  Each  actor 
received  four-and-a-half  yards  of  scarlet  cloth  to  wear 
as  a  cloak  on  the  occasion,  and  in  the  document 
authorising  the  grant  Shakespeare's  name  stands  first 
on  the  list.^  The  dramatist  Dekker  was  author  of  a 
somewhat  bombastic  account  of  the  elaborate  cere- 
monial, which  rapidly  ran  through  three  editions.     On 


^  The  entry,  which  appears  in  the  accounts  of  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Chamber,  was  first  printed  in  1842  in  Cunningham's  Extracts  from  the 
Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Courts  p.  xxxiv.  A  comparison  of  Cunning- 
ham's transcript  with  the  original  in  the  Pubhc  Record  Office  (^Audit 
Office-Declared  Accounts,  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber,  bundle  388,  roll 
41)  shows  that  it  is  accurate.  The  earl  of  Pembroke  was  in  no  way  re- 
sponsible for  the  performance  at  Wilton  House.  At  the  time,  the  Court 
was  formally  installed  in  his  house  (cf.  Ceil.  State  Papers,  Dom. 
1603-10,  pp.  47-59),  and  the  Court  officers  commissioned  the  players 
to  perform  there,  and  paid  all  their  expenses.  The  alleged  tradition, 
recently  promulgated  for  the  first  time  by  the  owners  of  Wilton,  that  As 
Vou  Like  It  was  performed  on  the  occasion,  is  unsupported  by  con- 
temporary evidence. 

-  The  grant  is  transcribed  in  the  New  Shakspere  Society's  Trans- 
actions, 1877-9,  Appendix  II.,  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  papers  in 
the  Public  Record  Office,  where  it  is  now  numbered  660.  The  number 
allotted  it  in  the  Transactions  is  obsolete. 


MATURITY   OF   GENIUS  233 

April  9,  1604,  the  King  gave  further  proof  of  his 
friendly  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  his  actors  by- 
causing  an  official  letter  to  be  sent  to  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  London  and  the  Justices  of  the  Peace  for 
Middlesex  and  Surrey,  bidding  them  '  permit  and 
suffer '  the  King's  players  to  '  exercise  their  playes ' 
at  their  '  usual  house,'  the  Globe. ^  Four  months 
later  —  in  August  —  every  member  of  the  company 
was  summoned  by  the  King's  order  to  attend  at 
Somerset  House  during  the  fortnight's  sojourn 
there  of  the  Spanish  ambassador  extraordinary, 
Juan  Fernandez  de  Velasco,  duke  de  Frias,  and 
Constable  of  Castile,  who  came  to  London  to  ratify 
the  treaty  of  peace  between  England  and  Spain, 
and  was  magnificently  entertained  by  the  English 
Court.2     Between    All    Saints'    Day    [November    i] 

1  A  contemporary  copy  of  this  letter,  which  declared  the  Queen's 
players  acting  at  the  Fortune  and  the  Prince's  players  at  the  Curtain 
to  be  entitled  to  the  same  privileges  as  the  King's  players,  is  at  Dulwich 
College  (cf.  G.  F.  Warner's  Catalogue  of  the  Didwich  Manuscripts, 
pp.  26-7).  Collier  printed  it  in  his  Ne-M  Facts  with  fraudulent  addi- 
tions, in  which  the  names  of  Shakespeare  and  other  actors  figured. 

-  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  in  his  Outlines^  i.  213,  cites  a  royal  order 
to  this  effect,  but  gives  no  authority,  and  I  have  sought  in  vain  for  the 
document  at  the  Public  Record  Office,  at  the  British  Museum,  and 
elsewhere.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  fact  that  Shakespeare 
and  his  fellow-actors  took  part,  as  Grooms  of  the  Chamber,  in  the 
ceremonies  attending  the  Constable's  visit  to  London.  In  the  un- 
printed  accounts  of  Edmund  Tilney,  master  of  the  revels,  for  the 
year  October  1603  to  October  1604,  charge  is  made  for  his  three 
days'  attendance  with  four  men  to  direct  the  entertainments  '  at  the 
receaving  of  the  Constable  of  Spayne  '  (Public  Record  Office,  Declared 
Accounts,  Pipe  Office  Roll  2805).  The  magnificent  festivities  culmi- 
nated in  a  splendid  banquet  given  in  the  Constable's  honour  by  James  I 
at  Whitehall   on   Sunday,  August   W  —  the   day   on  which  the  treaty 


234  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

and  the  ensuing  Shrove  Tuesday,  which  fell  early 
in  February  1605,  Shakespeare's  company  gave  no 
fewer  than  eleven  performances  at  Whitehall  in  the 
royal  presence.^ 

was  signed.  In  the  morning  all  the  members  of  the  royal  household 
accompanied  the  Constable  in  formal  procession  from  Somerset  House. 
After  the  banquet,  at  which  the  earls  of  Pembroke  and  Southampton 
acted  as  stewards,  there  was  a  ball,  and  the  King's  guests  subsequently 
witnessed  exhibitions  of  bear  baiting,  bull  baiting,  rope  dancing,  and 
feats  of  horsemanship.  (Cf.  Stow's  CJu-07iicle,  1631,  pp.  845-6,  and 
a  Spanish  pamphlet,  Kelacion  de  la  Jornada  del  exc^^"  Condestabilc 
di  Castilla,  etc.,  Antwerp,  1604,  4to,  which  was  summarised  in 
Ellis's  Original  Letters,  2nd  series,  vol.  iii.  pp.  207-15,  and  was  partly 
translated  in  Mr.  W.  B.  Rye's  England  as  seen  by  Foreigners,  pp.  117- 
24). 

1  At  the  Bodleian  Library  (MS.  Rawlinson,  A  204)  are  the  original 
accounts  of  Lord  Stanhope  of  Harrington,  Treasurer  of  the  Chamber 
for  various  (detached)  years  in  the  early  part  of  James  I's  reign.  These 
documents  show  that  Shakespeare's  company  acted  at  Court  on 
November  i  and  4,  December  26  and  28,  1604,  and  on  January  7 
and  8,  February  2  and  3,  and  the  evenings  of  the  following  Shrove 
Sunday,  Shrove  Monday,  and  Shrove  Tuesday,  1605. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES  OF  TRAGEDY  235 


XIV 

THE  HIGHEST   THEMES   OF   TRAGEDY 

Under  the  incentive  of  such  exalted  patronage, 
Shakespeare's  activity  redoubled,  but  his  work  shows 
'Othello'  none  of  the  conventional  marks  of  literature 
sure  for^^"  ^^^^  ^^  produced  in  the  blaze  of  Court  favour. 
Measure."  The  first  six  years  of  the  new  reign  saw  him 
absorbed  in  the  highest  themes  of  tragedy,  and  an 
unparalleled  intensity  and  energy,  which  bore  few 
traces  of  the  trammels  of  a  Court,  thenceforth  illu- 
mined every  scene  that  he  contrived.  To  1604  the 
composition  of  two  plays  can  be  confidently  assigned, 
one  of  which — 'Othello' — ranks  with  Shakespeare's 
greatest  achievements  ;  while  the  other  — '  Measure  for 
Measure' — althoughas  a  whole  far  inferior  to  'Othello,' 
contains  one  of  the  finest  scenes  (between  Angelo  and 
Isabella,  ir.  ii.  43  seq.)and  one  of  the  greatest  speeches 
(Claudio  on  the  fear  of  death,  in.  i.  1 16-30)  in  the 
range  of  Shakespearean  drama.  'Othello'  was  doubt- 
less the  first  new  piece  by  Shakespeare  that  was  acted 
before  James.  It  was  produced  at  Whitehall  on 
November  i.  'Measure  for  Measure'  followed  on 
December  26.^    Neither  was  printed  in  Shakespeare's 

^  These  dates  are  drawn  from  a  memorandum  of  plays  performed  at 
Court  in  1604  antl   1605  which  is  among  Malone's  manuscripts  in  the 


236  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

lifetime.  The  plots  of  both  ultimately  come  from  the 
same  Italian  collection  of  novels  —  Giraldi  Cinthio's 
'  Hecatommithi,'  which  was  first  published  in  1565. 

Cinthio's  painful  story  of  '  Othello '  (decad.  iii. 
nov.  3)  is  not  known  to  have  been  translated  into 
English  before  Shakespeare  dramatised  it.  He  fol- 
lowed its  main  drift  with  fidelity,  but  he  introduced 
the  new  characters  of  Roderigo  and  Emilia,  and  he 
invested  the  catastrophe  with  new  and  fearful  intensity 
by  making  lago's  cruel  treachery  known  to  Othello  at 
the  last,  after  lago's  perfidy  has  impelled  the  noble- 
hearted  Moor  in  his  groundless  jealousy  to  murder 
his  gentle  and  innocent  wife  Desdemona.  lago  be- 
came in  Shakespeare's  hands  the  subtlest  of  all  studies 
of  intellectual  villainy  and  hypocrisy.  The  whole 
tragedy  displays  to  magnificent  advantage  the  dram- 
atist's fully  matured  powers.     An  unfaltering  equi- 

Bodleian  Library,  and  was  obviously  derived  by  Malone  from  authentic 
documents  that  were  in  his  day  preserved  at  the  Audit  Office  in  Somerset 
House.  The  document  cannot  now  be  traced  at  the  Public  Record 
Office,  whither  the  Audit  Office  papers  have  been  removed  since 
Malone's  death.  Peter  Cunningham  professed  to  print  the  original 
document  in  his  accounts  of  the  revels  at  Court  (Shakespeare  Society, 
1842,  pp.  203  seq.),  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  forged  his  so-called 
transcript,  and  that  the  additions  which  he  made  to  Malone's  memo- 
randum were  the  outcome  of  his  fancy.  Collier's  assertion  in  his  New 
Particulars,  p.  57,  that  Othello  was  first  acted  at  Sir  Thomas  Egerton's 
residence  at  Harefield  on  August  6,  1602,  was  based  solely  on  a  docu- 
ment among  the  Earl  of  EUesmere's  MSS.  at  Bridgwater  House,  which 
purported  to  be  a  contemporary  account  by  the  clerk.  Sir  Arthur  Mayn- 
waring,  of  Sir  Thomas  Egerton's  household  expenses.  This  document, 
which  Collier  reprinted  in  his  Egerton  Papers  (Camden  Soc),  p.  343, 
was  authoritatively  pronounced  by  experts  in  i860  to  be  *a  shameful 
forgery '  (cf.  Ingleby's  Complete  View  of  the  Shakspere  Controversy^ 
1861,  pp.  261-5). 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  237 

librium  is  maintained  in  the  treatment  of   plot   and 
characters  alike. 

Cinthio  made  the  perilous  story  of  *  Measure  for 
Measure  '  the  subject  not  only  of  a  romance,  but  of  a 
tragedy  called  '  Epitia.'  Before  Shakespeare  wrote  his 
play,  Cinthio's  romance  had  been  twice  rendered  into 
English  by  George  Whetstone.  Whetstone  had  not 
only  given  a  somewhat  altered  version  of  the  Italian 
romance  in  his  unwieldy  play  of  '  Promos  and  Cassan- 
dra' (in  two  parts  of  five  acts  each,  1578),  but  he  had 
also  freely  translated  it  in  his  collection  of  prose 
tales,  *  Heptameron  of  Civil  Discources'  (1582).  Yet 
there  is  every  likelihood  that  Shakespeare  also  knew 
Cinthio's  play,  which,  unlike  his  romance,  was  untrans- 
lated ;  the  leading  character,  who  is  by  Shakespeare 
christened  Angelo,  was  known  by  another  name  to 
Cinthio  in  his  story,  but  Cinthio  in  his  play  (and  not  in 
his  novel)  gives  the  character  a  sister  named  Angela, 
which  doubtless  suggested  Shakespeare's  designation.^ 
In  the  hands  of  Shakespeare's  predecessors  the  tale 
is  a  sordid  record  of  lust  and  cruelty.  But  Shake- 
speare prudently  showed  scant  respect  for  their 
handling  of  the  narrative.  By  diverting  the  course 
of  the  plot  at  a  critical  point  he  not  merely  proved 
his  artistic  ingenuity,  but  gave  dramatic  dignity  and 
moral  elevation  to  a  degraded  and  repellent  theme. 
In  the  old  versions  Isabella  yields  her  virtue  as 
the  price  of  her  brother's  life.  The  central  fact  of 
Shakespeare's  play  is  Isabella's  inflexible  and  un- 
conditional chastity.     Other  of  Shakespeare's  altera- 

1  Dr.  Garnett's  Italian  Lileratme,  1898,  p.  227. 


238  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

tions,  like  the  Duke's  abrupt  proposal  to  marry  Isabella, 
seem  hastily  conceived.  But  his  creation  of  the  pa- 
thetic character  of  Mariana  'of  the  moated  grange' 
—  the  legally  affianced  bride  of  Angelo,  Isabella's 
would-be  seducer  —  skilfully  excludes  the  possibility  of 
a  settlement  (as  in  the  old  stories)  between  Isabella 
and  Angelo  on  terms  of  marriage.  Shakespeare's 
argument  is  throughout  philosophically  subtle.  The 
poetic  eloquence  in  which  Isabella  and  the  Duke  pay 
homage  to  the  virtue  of  chastity,  and  the  many  exposi- 
tions of  the  corruption  with  which  unchecked  sexual 
passion  threatens  society,  alternate  with  coarsely  comic 
interludes  which  suggest  the  vanity  of  seeking  to  efface 
natural  instincts  by  the  coercion  of  law.  There  is  little 
in  the  play  that  seems  designed  to  recommend  it  to 
the  Court  before  which  it  was  first  performed.  But 
the  two  emphatic  references  to  a  ruler's  dislike  of  mobs, 
despite  his  love  of  his  people,  were  perhaps  penned  in 
deferential  allusion  to  James  I,  whose  horror  of  crowds 
was  notorious.  In  act  i.  sc.  i.  67-72  the  Duke 
remarks : 

I  love  the  people 
But  do  not  like  to  stage  me  to  their  eyes. 
Though  it  do  well,  I  do  not  relish  well 
Their  loud  applause  and  aves  vehement. 
Nor  do  I  think  the  man  of  safe  discretion 
That  does  affect  it. 

Of  like  tenor  is  the  succeeding  speech  of  Angelo  (act 
II.  sc.  iv.  27-30): 

The  general  [i.e.  the  public],  subject  to  a  well-wish'd  King,  .   .  . 
Crowd  to  his  presence,  where  their  untaught  love 
Must  needs  appear  offence. 


THE  HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  239 

In  '  Macbeth,'  his  *  great  epic  drama,'  which  he 
began  in  1605  and  completed  next  year,  Shakespeare 
employed  a  setting  wholly  in  harmony  with 
the  accession  of  a  Scottish  king.  The  story 
was  drawn  from  Holinshed's  '  Chronicle  of  Scottish 
History,'  with  occasional  reference,  perhaps,  to  earlier 
Scottish  sources.^  The  supernatural  machinery  of 
the  three  witches  accorded  with  the  King's  super- 
stitious faith  in  demonology ;  the  dramatist  lavished 
his  sympathy  on  Banquo,  James's  ancestor ;  while 
Macbeth's  vision  of  kings  who  carry  '  twofold  balls  and 
treble  sceptres  '  (iv.  i.  20)  plainly  adverted  to  the  union 
of  Scotland  with  England  and  Ireland  under  James's 
sway.  The  allusion  by  the  porter  (act  11.  iii.  9)  to 
the  *  equivocator  .  .  .  who  committed  treason '  was 
perhaps  suggested  by  the  notorious  defence  of  the 
doctrine  of  equivocation  made  by  the  Jesuit  Henry 
Garnett,  who  was  executed  early  in  1606  for  his  share 
in  the  '  Gunpowder  Plot.'  The  piece  was  not  printed 
until  1623.  It  is  in  its  existing  shape  the  shortest  of  all 
Shakespeare's  plays,  and  it  is  possible  that  it  survives 
only  in  an  abbreviated  acting  version.  Much  scenic 
elaboration  characterised  the  production.  Dr.  Simon 
Forman  witnessed  a  performance  of  the  tragedy  at 
the  Globe  in  April  161 1  and  noted  that  Macbeth 
and  Banquo  entered  the  stage  on  horseback,  and 
that  Banquo's  ghost  was  materially  represented  (iii. 
iv.  40  seq.).  Like  '  Othello,'  the  play  ranks  with 
the  noblest  tragedies  either  of  the  modern  or  the 
ancient  world.     The  characters  of  hero  and  heroine 

^  Letter  by  Mrs.  Slopes  in  Athenceum,  July  25,  1896. 


240  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

—  Macbeth  and  his  wife  —  are  depicted  with  the 
utmost  subtlety  and  insight.  In  three  points  '  Mac- 
beth '  differs  somewhat  from  other  of  Shakespeare's 
productions  in  the  great  class  of  literature  to  which 
it  belongs.  The  interweaving  with  the  tragic  story 
of  supernatural  interludes  in  which  Fate  is  weirdly 
personified  is  not  exactly  matched  in  any  other  of 
Shakespeare's  tragedies.  In  the  second  place,  the 
action  proceeds  with  a  rapidity  that  is  wholly  without 
parallel  in  the  rest  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  Nowhere, 
moreover,  has  Shakespeare  introduced  comic  relief 
into  a  tragedy  with  bolder  effect  than  in  the  porter's 
speech  after  the  murder  of  Duncan  (11.  iii.  i  seq.). 
The  theory  that  this  passage  was  from  another  hand 
does  not  merit  acceptance.^  It  cannot,  however,  be 
overlooked  that  the  second  scene  of  the  first  act  — 
Duncan's  interview  with  the  'bleeding  sergeant'  — 
falls  so  far  below  the  style  of  the  rest  of  the  play  as 
to  suggest  that  it  was  an  interpolation  by  a  hack  of 
the  theatre.  The  resemblances  between  Thomas 
Middleton's  later  play  of  'The  Witch'  (1610)  and 
portions  of  '  Macbeth '  may  safely  be  ascribed  to  plagia- 
rism on  Middleton's  part.  Of  two  songs  which  ac- 
cording to  the  stage  directions  were  to  be  sung  during 
the  representation  of  '  Macbeth  '  (iii.  v.  and  iv.  i.), 
only  the  first  line  of  each  is  noted  there,  but  songs 
beginning  with  the  same  lines  are  set  out  in  full  in 
Middleton's  play;  they  were  probably  by  Middleton, 
and  were  interpolated  by  actors  in  a  stage  version  of 
'  Macbeth  '  after  its  original  production. 

1  Cf.  Macbeth,  etl.  Clark  and  Wright,  Clarendon  Press  Series. 


THE   HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  24I 

'  King  Lear,'  in  which  Shakespeare's  tragic 
genius  moved  without  any  faltering  on  Titanic 
■  King  heights,  was  written  during   1606,  and  was 

Lear/  produccd  bcforc  the  Court  at  Whitehall  on 

the  night  of  December  26  of  that  year.^  It  was 
entered  on  the  '  Stationers'  Registers '  on  November 
26,  1607,  and  two  imperfect  editions,  published  by 
Nathaniel  Butter,  appeared  in  the  following  year ; 
neither  exactly  corresponds  with  the  other  or  with 
the  improved  and  fairly  satisfactory  text  of  the  Folio. 
The  three  versions  present  three  different  playhouse 
transcripts.  Like  its  immediate  predecessor,  '  Mac- 
beth,' the  tragedy  was  mainly  founded  on  Holin- 
shed's  'Chronicle.'  The  leading  theme  had  been 
dramatised  as  early  as  1593,  but  Shakespeare's  atten- 
tion was  no  doubt  directed  to  it  by  the  publication  of 
a  crude  dramatic  adaptation  of  Holinshed's  version  in 
1605  under  the  title  of  'The  True  Chronicle  History 
of  King  Leir  and  his  three  Daughters — Gonorill, 
Ragan,  and  Cordelia.'  Shakespeare  did  not  adhere 
closely  to  his  original.  He  invested  the  tale  of  Lear 
with  a  hopelessly  tragic  conclusion,  and  on  it  he  grafted 
the  equally  distressing  tale  of  Gloucester  and  his  two 
sons,  which  he  drew  from  Sidney's  'Arcadia.'^  Hints 
for  the  speeches  of  Edgar  when  feigning  madness 
were  drawn  from   Harsnet's  '  Declaration  of  Popish 


1  This  fact  is  stated  on  the  title-page  of  the  Quartos. 

2  Sidney  tells  the  story  in  a  chapter  entitled  'The  pitiful  state  and 
story  of  the  Paphlagonian  unkind  King  and  his  blind  son;  first  related 
by  the  son,  then  by  his  blind  father'  (bk.  ii.  chap.  10,  ed.  1590,  4to; 
PP-  132-3.  ed.  1674,  fob). 


242  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

Impostures,'  1603.  In  every  act  of  '  Lear  '  the  pity  and 
terror  of  which  tragedy  is  capable  reach  their  climax. 
Only  one  who  has  something  of  the  Shakespearean 
gift  of  language  could  adequately  characterise  the 
scenes  of  agony  —  '  the  living  martyrdom  '  —  to  which 
the  fiendish  ingratitude  of  his  daughters  condemns 
the  abdicated  king  —  '  a  very  foolish,  fond  old  man, 
fourscore  and  upward.'  The  elemental  passions  burst 
forth  in  his  utterances  with  all  the  vehemence  of  the 
volcanic  tempest  which  beats  about  his  defence- 
less head  in  the  scene  on  the  heath.  The  brutal 
blinding  of  Gloucester  by  Cornwall  exceeds  in  horror 
any  other  situation  that  Shakespeare  created,  if  we 
assume  that  he  was  not  responsible  for  the  like  scenes 
of  mutilation  in  '  Titus  Andronicus.'  At  no  point  in. 
*  Lear '  is  there  any  loosening  of  the  tragic  tension. 
The  faithful  half-witted  lad  who  serves  the  king  as 
his  fool  plays  the  jesting  chorus  on  his  master's 
fortune  in  penetrating  earnest  and  deepens  the  deso- 
lating pathos. 

Although  Shakespeare's  powers  showed  no  sign 
of  exhaustion,  he  reverted  in  the  year  following  the 
colossal  effort  of  'Lear'  (1607)  to  his  earlier  habit 
'Timon  of  of  Collaboration,  and  with  another's  aid  com- 
Athens.'  poscd  two  dramas —  '  Timon  of  Athens  '  and 
'  Pericles.'  An  extant  play  on  the  subject  of  '  Timon 
of  Athens'  was  composed  in  1600^  but  there  is  noth- 
ing to  show  that  Shakespeare  and  his  coadjutor  were 
acquainted  with  it.     They  doubtless  derived  a   part 

^  It  was  edited  for  the  Shakespeare  Society  in  1842  by  Dyce,  who 
owned  the  manuscript. 


THE   HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  243 

of  their  story  from  Painter's  '  Palace  of  Pleasure,' 
and  from  a  short  digression  in  Plutarch's  '  Life  of 
Marc  Antony,'  where  Antony  is  described  as  emu- 
lating the  life  and  example  of  '  Timon  Misanthropos 
the  Athenian.'  The  dramatists  may,  too,  have 
known  a  dialogue  of  Lucian  entitled  'Timon,'  which 
Boiardo  had  previously  converted  into  a  comedy 
under  the  name  of  '  II  Timone.'  Internal  evidence 
makes  it  clear  that  Shakespeare's  colleague  was 
responsible  for  nearly  the  whole  of  acts  in.  and  v. 
But  the  character  of  Timon  himself  and  all  the  scenes 
which  he  dominates  are  from  Shakespeare's  pen. 
Timon  is  cast  in  the  mould  of  Lear. 

There  seems  some  ground  for  the  belief  that 
Shakespeare's  coadjutor  in  'Timon'  was  George 
Wilkins,  a  writer  of  ill-developed  dramatic  power, 
who,  in  'The  Miseries  of  Enforced  Marriage'  (1607), 
first  treated  the  story  that  afterwards  served  for  the 
plot  of  *  The  Yorkshire  Tragedy.'  At  any  rate, 
Wilkins  may  safely  be   credited  with   por- 

'  Pericles."         .  .  .  . 

tions  of  '  Pericles,'  a  romantic  play  which 
can  be  referred  to  the  same  year  as  '  Timon.'  Shake- 
speare contributed  only  acts  in.  and  v.  and  parts  of 
IV.,  which  together  form  a  self-contained  whole,  and 
do  not  combine  satisfactorily  with  the  remaining 
scenes.  The  presence  of  a  third  hand,  of  inferior 
merit  to  Wilkins,  has  been  suspected,  and  to  this  col- 
laborator (perhaps  William  Rowley,  a  professional  re- 
viser of  plays  who  could  show  capacity  on  occasion) 
arebestassignedthethree  scenes  of  purposeless  coarse- 
ness which  take  place  in  or  before  a  brothel  (iv.  ii.,  v., 


244  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

and  vi.).  From  so  distributed  a  responsibility  the 
piece  naturally  suffers.  It  lacks  homogeneity  and 
the  story  is  helped  out  by  dumb  shows  and  pro- 
logues. But  a  matured  felicity  of  expression  charac- 
terises Shakespeare's  own  contributions,  narrating 
the  romantic  quest  of  Pericles  for  his  daughter 
Marina,  who  was  born  and  abandoned  in  a  shipwreck. 
At  many  points  he  here  anticipated  his  latest  dra- 
matic effects.  The  shipwreck  is  depicted  (act  iv.  i.) 
as  impressively  as  in  the  '  Tempest,'  and  Marina 
and  her  mother  Thaisa  enjoy  many  experiences  in 
common  with  Perdita  and  Hermione  in  the  '  Winter's 
Tale.'  The  prologues,  which  were  not  by  Shake- 
speare, were  spoken  by  an  actor  representing  the 
mediaeval  poet  John  Gower,  who  in  the  fourteenth 
century  had  versified  Pericles's  story  in  his  '  Confessio 
Amantis '  under  the  title  of  'Apollonius  of  Tyre.'  It 
is  also  found  in  a  prose  translation  (from  the  French), 
which  was  printed  in  Lawrence  Twyne's  '  Patterne  of 
Painfull  Adventures'  in  1576,  and  again  in  1607. 
After  the  play  was  produced  George  Wilkins,  one  of 
the  alleged  coadjutors,  based  on  it  a  novel  called 
'The  Painful  Adventures  of  Pericles,  Prynce  of 
Tyre,  being  the  True  history  of  the  Play  of  Pericles 
as  it  was  lately  presented  by  the  worthy  and  ancient 
Poet,  John  Gower'  (1608).  The  play  was  issued  as 
by  William  Shakespeare  in  a  mangled  form  in  1608, 
and  again  in  1611,  1619,  1630,  and  1635.  It  was 
not  included  in  Shakespeare's  collected  works  till 
1664. 

In    May    1608    Edward    Blount    entered    in   the 


THE    HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  245 

Stationers'     Registers,'    by    the    authority    of    Sil 
Antonv       Gcorgc  Buc,  the  licenser  of  plays,  a  '  booke 
and  cieo-     called  "  Anthony  and  Cleopatra."  '    No  copy 
^^'^^'  of  this  date  is  known,  and  once  again  the 

company  probably  hindered  the  publication.  The 
play  was  first  printed  in  the  folio  of  1623.  The  source 
of  the  tragedy  is  the  life  of  Antonius  in  North's 
'Plutarch.'  Shakespeare  closely  followedthe  historical 
narrative,  and  assimilated  not  merely  its  temper,  but, 
in  the  first  three  acts,  much  of  its  phraseology.  A  few 
short  scenes  are  original,  but  there  is  no  detail  in  such 
a  passage,  for  example,  as  Enobarbus's  gorgeous  de- 
scription of  the  pageant  of  Cleopatra's  voyage  up  the 
Cydnus  to  meet  Antony  (11.  ii.  194  seq.),  which  is  not 
to  be  matched  in  Plutarch.  In  the  fourth  and  fifth 
acts  Shakespeare's  method  changes  and  he  expands 
his  material  with  magnificent  freedom.^  The  whole 
theme  is  in  his  hands  instinct  with  a  dramatic  gran- 
deur which  lifts  into  sublimity  even  Cleopatra's  moral 
worthlessness  and  Antony's  criminal  infatuation.  The 
terse  and  caustic  comments  which  Antony's  level- 
headed friend  P^nobarbus,  in  the  jS/c  of  chorus,  passes 
on  the  action  accentuates  its  significance.  Into  the 
smallest  as  into  the  greatest  personages  Shakespeare 
breathed  all  his  vitalising  fire.  The  'happy  valiancy ' 
of  the  style,  too,  —  to  use  Coleridge's  admirable  phrase, 
—  sets  the  tragedy  very  near  the  zenith  of  Shake- 
speare's  achievement,    and    w^hile    differentiating   it 

1  Mr.  George  Wyndham,  in  his  introduction  to  his  edition  of  North's 
Pliitai-ch,  i.  pp.  xciii.-c,  gives  an  excellent  criticism  of  the  relations  of 
Shakespeare's  play  to  Plutarch's  life  of  Antonius. 


246  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

from  'Macbeth,'  'Othello,'  and  'Lear'  renders  it  a 
very  formidable  rival. 

'  Coriol anus  '  (first  printed  from  a  singularly  bad 
text  in  1623)  similarly  owes  its  origin  to  the  biography 
'Corio-  of  the  hero  in  North's  'Plutarch,'  although 
lanus."  Shakespeare  may  have  first  met  the  story  in 
Painter's  '  Palace  of  Pleasure  '  (No.  iv.).  He  again 
adhered  to  the  text  of  Plutarch  with  the  utmost 
literalness,  and  at  times  — even  in  the  great  crises  of  the 
action  — repeated  North's  translation  word  for  word.^ 
But  the  humorous  scenes  are  wholly  of  Shakespeare's 
invention,  and  the  course  of  the  narrative  was  at  times 
slightly  changed  for  purposes  of  dramatic  effect.  The 
metrical  characteristics  prove  the  play  to  have  been 
written  about  the  same  period,  as  '  Antony  and  Cleo- 

^  See  the  whole  of  Coriolanus's  great  speech  on  offering  his  services 
to  Aufidius,  the  Volscian  general,  iv.  v.  71-107: 

My  name  is  Caius  Marcius,  who  hath  done 
To  thee  particularly  and  to  all  the  Volsces, 
Great  hurt  and  mischief;  thereto  witness  may 
My  surname,  Coriolanus  ...  to  do  thee  service. 

North's  translation  of  Plutarch  gives  in  almost  the  same  terms  Corio- 
lanus's speech  on  the  occasion.  It  opens:  'I  am  Caius  Martins,  who 
hath  done  to  thyself  particularly,  and  to  all  the  Volsces  generally, 
great  hurt  and  mischief,  which  I  cannot  deny  for  my  surname  of 
Coriolanus  that  I  bear.'  Similarly  Volumnia's  stirring  appeal  to  her  son 
and  her  son's  proffer  of  submission,  in  act  v.  sc.  iii.  94-193,  reproduce 
with  equal  literalness  North's  rendering  of  Plutarch.  '  If  we  held  our 
peace,  my  son,'  Volumnia  begins  in  North,  '  the  state  of  our  raiment 
would  easily  betray  to  thee  what  life  we  have  led  at  home  since  thy 
exile  and  abode  abroad;  but  think  now  with  thyself,'  and  so  on.  The 
first  sentence  of  Shakespeare's  speech  runs : 

Should  we  be  silent  and  not  speak,  our  raiment 

And  state  of  bodies  would  bewray  what  life 

We  have  led  since  thy  exile.    Think  with  thyself  .  .  . 


THE    HIGHEST  THEMES   OF  TRAGEDY  247 

patra,'  probably  in  1609.  In  its  austere  temper  it 
contrasts  at  all  points  with  its  predecessor.  The 
courageous  self-reliance  of  Coriolanus's  mother,  Vo- 
lumnia,  is  severely  contrasted  with  the  submissive 
gentleness  of  Virgilia,  Coriolanus's  wife.  The  hero 
falls  a  victim  to  no  sensual  flaw,  but  to  unchecked 
pride  of  caste,  and  there  is  a  searching  irony  in  the 
emphasis  laid  on  the  ignoble  temper  of  the  rabble, 
who  procure  his  overthrow.  By  way  of  foil,  the 
speeches  of  Menenius  give  dignified  expression  to 
the  maturest  political  wisdom.  The  dramatic  interest 
throughout  is  as  single  and  as  unflaggingly  sustained 
as  in  '  Othello.' 


248  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


XV 

THE  LATEST  PLAYS 

In  '  Cymbeline,'  '  The  Winter's  Tale,'  and  '  The 
Tempest,'  the  three  latest  plays  that  came  from  his 
The  latest  Unaided  pen,  Shakespeare  dealt  with  roman- 
piays.  ^Iq  themes   which  all  end  happily,  but  he 

instilled  into  them  a  pathos  which  sets  them  in  a 
category  of  their  own  apart  alike  from  comedy  and 
tragedy.  The  placidity  of  tone  conspicuous  in  these 
three  plays  (none  of  which  was  published  in  his  life- 
time) has  been  often  contrasted  with  the  storm  and 
stress  of  the  great  tragedies  that  preceded  them.  But 
the  commonly  accepted  theory  that  traces  in  this 
change  of  tone  a  corresponding  development  in  the 
author's  own  emotions  ignores  the  objectivity  of  Shake- 
speare's dramatic  work.  All  phases  of  feeling  lay 
within  the  scope  of  his  intuition,  and  the  successive 
order  in  which  he  approached  them  bore  no  expli- 
cable relation  to  substantive  incident  in  his  private 
life  or  experience.  In  middle  life,  his' temperament, 
like  that  of  other  men,  acquired  a  larger  measure  of 
gravity  and  his  thought  took  a  profounder  .cast  than 
characterised  it  in  youth.  The  highest  topics  of 
tragedy  were  naturally  more  congenial  to  him,  and 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  249 

were  certain  of  a  surer  handling  when  he  was  near- 
ing  his  fortieth  birthday  than  at  an  earlier  age.  The 
serenity  of  meditative  romance  was  more  in  harmony 
with  the  fifth  decade  of  his  years  than  with  the 
second  or  third.  But  no  more  direct  or  definite 
connection  can  be  discerned  between  the  progres- 
sive stages  of  his  work  and  the  progressive  stages 
of  his  life.  To  seek  in  his  biography  for  a  chain  of 
events  which  should  be  calculated  to  stir  in  his  own 
soul  all  or  any  of  the  tempestuous  passions  that  ani- 
mate his  greatest  plays  is  to  under-estimate  and  to 
misapprehend  the  resistless  might  of  his  creative 
genius. 

In  'Cymbeline  '  Shakespeare  freely  adapted  a  frag- 
ment of  British  history  taken  from  Holinshed,  inter- 
'Cymbe-  weaving  with  it  a  story  from  Boccaccio's 
line."  'Decameron'  (day  2,  novel  ix. ).     Ginevra, 

whose  falsely  suspected  chastity  is  the  theme  of  the 
Italian  novel,  corresponds  to  Shakespeare's  Imogen. 
Her  story  is  also  told  in  the  tract  called  '  Westward 
for  Smelts,'  which  had  already  been  laid  under  con- 
tribution by  Shakespeare  in  the  '  Merry  Wives.'  ^  The 
by-plot  of  the  banishment  of  the  lord,  Belarius, 
who  in  revenge  for  his  expatriation  kidnapped  the 
king's  young  sons  and  brought  them  up  with  him 
in  the  recesses  of  the  mountains,  is  Shakespeare's 
invention.  Although  most  of  the  scenes  are  laid 
in  Britain  in  the  first  century  before  the  Chris- 
tian era,  there  is  no  pretence  of  historical  vraisem- 
blance.     With  an  almost  ludicrous  inappropriateness 

1  See  p.  172  and  note  2. 


2 so  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  British  king's  courtiers  make  merry  with  technical 
terms  peculiar  to  Calvinistic  theology,  like  '  grace  ' 
and  'election.'^  The  action,  which,  owing  to  the  com- 
bination of  three  threads  of  narrative,  is  exceptionally 
varied  and  intricate,  wholly  belongs  to  the  region 
of  romance.  On  Imogen,  who  is  the  central  figure 
of  the  play,  Shakespeare  lavished  all  the  fascina- 
tion of  his  genius.  She  is  the  crown  and  flower 
of  his  conception  of  tender  and  artless  womanhood. 
Her  husband  Posthumus,  her  rejected  lover  Cloten, 
her  would-be  seducer  lachimo,  are  contrasted  with 
her  and  with  each  other  with  consummate  ingenuity. 
The  mountainous  retreat  in  which  Belarius  and  his 
fascinating  boy-companions  play  their  part  has  points 
of  resemblance  to  the  Forest  of  Arden  in  *  As  You 
Like  It '  ;  but  life  throughout  '  Cymbeline  '  is  grimly 
earnest,  and  the  mountains  nurture  little  of  the  con- 
templative quiet  which  characterises  existence  in  the 
Forest  of  Arden.  The  play  contains  the  splendid 
lyric  '  Fear  no  more  the  heat  of  the  sun '  (iv.  ii. 
258  seq.).  The  'pitiful  mummery'  of  the  vision  of 
Posthumus  (v.  iv.  lines  30  seq.)  must  have  been 
supplied  by  another  hand.  Dr.  Forman,  the  astrolo- 
ger who  kept  notes  of  some  of  his  experiences  as 
a  playgoer,  saw  'Cymbeline  '  acted  either  in  16 10  or 
1611. 

'  A  Winter's  Tale '  was  seen  by  Dr.  Forman  at' 
the  Globe  on  May  15,  161 1,  and  it  seems  to  have  been 

^  In  I.  i.  136-7  Imogen  is  described  as  '  past  grace  '  in  the  theologi- 
cal sense.  In  i.  ii.  30-1  the  Second  Lord  remarks :  '  If  it  be  a  sin 
to  make  a  true  election,  she  is  damned.' 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  25 1 

acted  at  Court  on  November  5  following.^  It  is  based 
•A  Win-  upon  Greene's  popular  romance  which  was 
ter',Taie.-  called  '  Pandosto  '  in  the  first  edition  of  1588, 
and  in  numerous  later  editions,  but  was  ultimately  in 
1648  re-christened  '  Dorastus  and  Fawnia.'  Shake- 
speare followed  Greene,  his  early  foe,  in  allotting  a 
seashore  to  Bohemia  —  an  error  over  which  Ben  Jonson 
and  many  later  critics  have  made  merry .^  A  few  lines 
were  obviously  drawn  from  that  story  of  Boccaccio 
with  which  Shakespeare  had  dealt  just  before  in 
'  Cymbeline.' ^  But  Shakespeare  created  the  high- 
spirited  Paulina  and  the  thievish  pedlar  Autolycus, 
whose  seductive  roguery  has  become  proverbial,  and 
he  invented  the  reconciliation  of  Leontes,  the  irration- 
ally jealous  husband,  with  Hermione,  his  wife,  whose 
dignified  resignation  and  forbearance  lend  the  story 
its  intense  pathos.  In  the  boy  Mamilius,  the  poet 
depicted  childhood  in  its  most  attractive  guise,  while 
the  courtship  of  Florizel  and  Perdita  is  the  perfection 
of  gentle  romance.     The  freshness  of  the  pastoral 


^  See  p.  255  note  i.  Camillo's  reflections  on  the  ruin  that  attends 
those  who  '  struck  anointed  kings '  have  been  regarded,  not  quite  con- 
clusively, as  specially  designed  to  gratify  James  I  (l.  ii.  358  seq.). 

2  Conversations  with  Drummond,  p.  16. 

3  In  Winter^  Tale  (iv.  iv.  760  seq.)  Autolycus  threatens  that 
the  clown's  son  'shall  be  flayed  alive;  then  'nointed  over  with  honey, 
set  on  the  head  of  a  wasp's  nest,'  etc.  In  Boccaccio's  story  the  villain 
Ambrogiuolo  (Shakespeare's  lachimo),  after  'being  bounden  to  the 
stake  and  anointed  with  honey,'  was  '  to  his  exceeding  torment  not 
only  slain  but  devoured  of  the  flies  and  wasps  and  gadflies  wherewith 
that  country  abounded'  (cf.  Decameron,  translated  by  John  Payne, 
1893,  i.  164). 


252  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

incident  surpasses  that  of  all  Shakespeare's  presenta- 
tions of  country  life. 

'  The  Tempest'  was  probably  the  latest  drama  that 
Shakespeare  completed.  In  the  summer  of  1609  a  fleet 
bound  for  Virginia,  under  the  command  of 
Sir  George  Somers,  was  overtaken  by  a 
storm  off  the  West  Indies,  and  the  admiral's  ship,  the 
'  Sea-Venture,'  was  driven  on  the  coast  of  the  hitherto 
unknown  Bermuda  Isles.  There  they  remained  ten 
months,  pleasurably  impressed  by  the  mild  beauty  of 
the  climate,  but  sorely  tried  by  the  hogs  which  over- 
ran the  island  and  by  mysterious  noises  which  led 
them  to  imagine  that  spirits  and  devils  had  made  the 
island  their  home.  Somers  and  his  men  were  given 
up  for  lost,  but  they  escaped  from  Bermuda  in  two 
boats  of  cedar  to  Virginia  in  May  16 10,  and  the 
news  of  their  adventures  and  of  their  safety  was 
carried  to  England  by  some  of  the  seamen  in  Sep- 
tember 16 10.  The  sailors'  arrival  created  vast  public 
excitement  in  London.  At  least  five  accounts  were 
soon  published  of  the  shipwreck  and  of  the  mysterious 
island,  previously  uninhabited  by  man,  which  had 
proved  the  salvation  of  the  expedition.  '  A  Discovery 
of  the  Bermudas,  otherwise  called  the  He  of  Divels,' 
written  by  Sylvester  Jourdain  or  Jourdan,  one  of  the 
survivors,  appeared  as  early  as  October.  A  second 
pamphlet  describing  the  disaster  was  issued  by  the 
Council  of  the  Virginia  Company  in  December,  and 
a  third  by  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  expedition.  Sir 
Thomas  Gates.  Shakespeare,  who  mentions  the 
'still   vexed    Bermoothes '  (i.    i.    229),    incorporated 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  253 

in  '  The  Tempest '  many  hints  from  Jourdain,  Gates, 
and  the  other  pamphleteers.  The  references  to  the 
gentle  climate  of  the  island  on  which  Prospero  is 
cast  away,  and  to  the  spirits  and  devils  that  infested 
it,  seem  to  render  its  identification  with  the  newly 
discovered  Bermudas  unquestionable.  But  Shake- 
speare incorporated  the  result  of  study  of  other 
books  of  travel.  The  name  of  the  god  Setebos 
whom  Caliban  worships  is  drawn  from  Eden's  trans- 
lation of  Magellan's  'Voyage  to  the  South  Pole' 
(in  the  'Historic  of  Travell,'  1577),  where  the  giants 
of  Patagonia  are  described  as  worshipping  a  '  great 
devil  they  call  Setebos.'  No  source  for  the  complete 
plot  has  been  discovered,  but  the  German  writer, 
Jacob  Ayrer,  who  died  in  1605,  dramatised  a  some- 
what similar  story  in  '  Die  schone  Sidea,'  where 
the  adventures  of  Prospero,  Ferdinand,  Ariel,  and 
Miranda  are  roughly  anticipated.^  English  actors 
were  performing  at  Nuremberg,  where  Ayrer  lived, 
in  1604  and  1606,  and  may  have  brought  reports 
of  the  piece  to  Shakespeare.  Or  perhaps  both 
English  and  German  plays  had  a  common  origin  in 
some  novel  that  has  not  yet  been  traced.  Gonzalo's 
description  of  an  ideal  commonwealth  (n.  i.  147  seq.) 
is  derived  from  Florio's  translation  of  Montaigne's 
essays  (1603),  while  into  Prospero's  great  speech 
renouncing  his  practice  of  magical  art  (v.  i.  33-57) 
Shakespeare  wrought  reminiscences  of  Golding's  trans- 
lation of  Medea's  invocation  in  Ovid's '  Metamorphoses' 

1  Printed  in  Cohn's  Shakespeare  in  Germa7iy. 


354  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

(vii.  197-206).^    Golding's  rendering  of  Ovid  had  been 
one  of  Shakespeare's  best-loved  books  in  youth. 

A  highly  ingenious  theory,  first  suggested  by  Tieck, 
represents  '  The  Tempest '  (which,  excepting  '  Mac- 
beth '  and  the  '  Two  Gentlemen,'  is  the  shortest  of 
Shakespeare's  plays)  as  a  masque  written  to  celebrate 
the  marriage  of  Princess  Elizabeth  (like  Miranda, 
an  island-princess)  with  the  Elector  Frederick.  This 
marriage  took  place  on  February  14,  16 12-13,  and 
'  The  Tempest '  formed  one  of  a  series  of  nineteen 
plays  which  were  performed  at  the  nuptial  festivities 
in  May  161 3.  But  none  of  the  other  plays  produced 
seem  to  have  been  new  ;  they  were  all  apparently 
chosen  because  they  were  established  favourites  at 
Court  and  on  the  public  stage,  and  neither  in  subject- 
matter  or  language  bore  obviously  specific  relation  to 
the  joyous  occasion.  But  161 3  is,  in  fact,  on  more 
substantial  ground  far  too  late  a  date  to  which  to  assign 
the  composition  of  'The  Tempest.'  According  to  in- 
formation which  was  accessible  to  Malone,  the  play 
had  'a  being  and  a  name'  in  the  autumn  of  161 1, 
and   was    no    doubt   written    some    months    before.^ 

^  Golding's  translation  of  Ovid's  Metaviorphoses,  edit.  1612,  p.  821^. 
The  passage  begins : 

Ye  ayres  and  windes,  ye  elves  of  hills,  ye  brookes  and  woods  alone. 

2  Variorum  Shakespeare,  1821,  XV.  423.  In  the  early  weeks  of  161 1 
Shakespeare's  company  presented  no  less  than  fifteen  plays  at  Court. 
Payment  of  150/.  was  made  to  the  actors  for  their  services  on  February 
12,  1610-II.  The  council's  warrant  is  extant  in  the  Bodleian  Library 
MS.  Rawl.  A  204  (f.  305).  The  plays  performed  were  not  specified  by 
name,  but  some  by  Shakespeare  were  beyond  doubt  amongst  them,  and 
possibly '  The  Tempest.'    A  forged  page  which  was  inserted  in  a  detached 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  255 

The  plot,  which  revolves  about  the  forcible  expulsion 
of  a  ruler  from  his  dominions,  and  his  daughter's 
wooing  by  the  son  of  the  usurper's  chief  ally,  is, 
moreover,  hardly  one  that  a  shrewd  playwright  would 
deliberately  choose  as  the  setting  of  an  official  epitha- 
lamium  in  honour  of  the  daughter  of  a  monarch  so 
sensitive  about  his  title  to  the  crown  as  James  I.^ 

In  the  theatre  and  at  court  the  early  representa- 
tions of  '  The  Tempest '  evoked  unmeasured  applause. 
The  success  owed  something  to  the  beautiful  lyrics 
which  were  dispersed  through  the  play  and  had  been 
set  to  music  by  Robert  Johnson,  a  lutenist  in  high 
repute.^ 

Like  its  predecessor,  'A  Winter's  Tale,'  'The 
Tempest '  long  maintained  its  first  popularity  in  the 

account-book  of  the  Master  of  the  Court-Revels  for  the  years  161 1 
and  1 61 2  at  the  PubUc  Record  Office,  and  was  printed  as  genuine 
in  Peter  Cunningham's  Extracts  from  the  Revels'  Accounts,  p.  210, 
supplies  among  other  entries  two  to  the  effect  that  '  The  Tempest '  was 
performed  at  Whitehall  at  Hallowmas  (^i.e.  November  i)  161 1, 
and  that  '  A  Winter's  Tale  '  followed  four  days  later,  on  November  5. 
Though  these  entries  are  fictitious,  the  information  they  offer  may  be 
true.  Malone  doubtless  based  his  positive  statement  respecting  the 
date  of  the  composition  of 'The  Tempest '  in  161 1  on  memoranda  made 
from  papers  then  accessible  at  the  Audit  Office,  but  now,  since  the 
removal  of  those  archives  to  the  Public  Record  Office,  mislaid.  All 
the  forgeries  introduced  into  the  Revels'  accounts  are  well  considered 
and  show  expert  knowledge  (see  p.  235,  note  l).  The  forger  of  the 
1 61 2  entries  probably  worked  either  on  the  published  statement  of 
Malone,  or  on  fuller  memoranda  left  by  him  among  his  voluminous 
manuscripts. 

^  Cf.  Universal  Review,  April  18S9,  article  by  Dr.  Richard  Garnett. 

2  Harmonised  scores  of  Johnson's  airs  for  the  songs  '  Full  Fathom 
Five '  and  '  Where  the  Bee  Sucks '  are  preserved  in  Wilson's  '  CheerfuJ 
Ay  res  and  Ballads  set  for  Three  Voices,'  1660. 


256  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

theatre,  and  the  vogue  of  the  two  pieces  drew  a  pass- 
ing sneer  from  Ben  Jonson.  In  the  Induction  to  his 
'Bartholomew  Fair,'  first  acted  in  1614,  he  wrote: 
'  If  there  be  never  a  servant-monster  in  the  Fair,  who 
can  help  it  he  \_i.er.  the  author]  says?  nor  a  nest  of 
Antics.  He  is  loth  to  make  nature  afraid  in  his 
plays  like  those  that  beget  Tales,  Tempests,  and  such 
like  Drolleries.'  The  'servant-monster  '  was  an  ob- 
vious allusion  to  Caliban,  and  'the  nest  of  Antics' 
was  a  glance  at  the  satyrs  who  figure  in  the  sheep- 
shearing  feast  in  'A  Winter's  Tale.' 

Nowhere  did  Shakespeare  give  rein  to  his 
imagination  with  more  imposing  effect  than  in  '  The 
Fanciful       Tcmpest.'      As    in    '  Midsummer     Night's 

interpreta-  '■  .  "    . 

tions  of  Dream,'  magical  or  supernatural  agencies 
pest."  are  the  mainsprings  of  the  plot.     But  the 

tone  is  marked  at  all  points  by  a  solemnity  and  pro- 
fundity of  thought  and  sentiment  which  are  lacking 
in  the  early  comedy.  The  serious  atmosphere  has 
led  critics,  without  much  reason,  to  detect  in  the 
scheme  of  '  The  Tempest '  something  more  than 
the  irresponsible  play  of  poetic  fancy.  Many  of  the 
characters  have  been  represented  as  the  outcome  of 
speculation  respecting  the  least  soluble  problems  of 
human  existence.  Little  reliance  should  be  placed 
on  such  interpretations.  The  creation  of  Miranda 
is  the  apotheosis  in  literature  of  tender,  ingenuous 
girlhood  unsophisticated  by  social  intercourse,  but 
Shakespeare  had  already  sketched  the  outlines  of 
the  portrait  in  'Marina'  and  '  Perdita,'  the  youthful 
heroines  respectively  of  '  Pericles '  and  '  A  Winter's 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  257 

Tale,'  and  these  two  characters  were  directly  devel- 
oped from  romantic  stories  of  girl-princesses,  cast  by 
misfortune  on  the  mercies  of  nature,  to  which  Shake- 
speare had  recourse  for  the  plots  of  the  two  plays. 
It  is  by  accident,  and  not  by  design,  that  in  Ariel 
appear  to  be  discernible  the  capabilities  of  human 
intellect  when  detached  from  ■  physical  attributes. 
Ariel  belongs  to  the  same  world  as  Puck,  although 
he  is  delineated  in  the  severer  colours  that  were 
habitual  to  Shakespeare's  fully  developed  art.  Cali- 
ban—  Ariel's  antithesis  —  did  not  owe  his  existence 
to  any  conscious  endeavour  on  Shakespeare's  part  to 
typify  human  nature  before  the  evolution  of  moral 
sentiment.^  Caliban  is  an  imaginary  portrait,  con- 
ceived with  matchless  vigour  and  vividness  of  the 
aboriginal  savage  of  the  New  World,  descriptions  of 
whom  abounded  in  contemporary  travellers'  speech 
and  writings,  and  universally  excited  the  liveliest 
curiosity.^  In  Prospero,  the  guiding  providence  of  the 
romance,  who  resigns  his  magic  power  in  the  closing 
scene,  traces  have  been  sought  of  the  lineaments  of 
the  dramatist  himself,  who  in  this  play  probably  bade 
farewell  to  the  enchanted  work  of  his  life.  Prospero 
is  in  the  story  a  scholar-prince  of  rare  intellectual 
attainments,  whose  engrossing  study  of  the  mysteries 

^  Cf.  Browning,  Caliban  tipon  Setebos ;  Daniel  Wilson,  Caliban, 
or  the  Missing  Link  (1873)  ;  and  Renan,  Caliban  (1878),  a  drama  con- 
tinuing Shakespeare's  play. 

-  When  Shakespeare  wrote  Troiliis  and  Cressida  he  had  formed 
some  conception  of  a  character  of  the  Caliban  type.  Thersites  says  of 
Ajax  (ill.  iii.  264),  '  He's  grown  a  very  land-fish,  languageless,  a 
monster.' 


258  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

of  science  has  given  him  command  of  the  forces  of 
nature.  His  magnanimous  renunciation  of  his  magical 
faculty  as  soon  as  by  its  exercise  he  has  restored  his 
shattered  fortunes  is  in  perfect  accord  with  the  general 
conception  of  his  just  and  philosophical  temper.  Any 
other  justification  of  his  final  act  is  superfluous. 

While  there  is  every  indication  that  in  1611  Shake- 
speare abandoned  dramatic  composition,  there  seems 
Unfinished  little  doubt  that  he  left  with  the  manager  of 
plays.  hjs  company  unfinished  drafts  of  more  than 

one  play  which  others  were  summoned  at  a  later  date 
to  complete.  His  place  at  the  head  of  the  active 
dramatists  was  at  once  filled  by  John  Fletcher, 
and  Fletcher,  with  some  aid  possibly  from  his 
friend  Philip  Massinger,  undertook  the  working 
up  of  Shakespeare's  unfinished  sketches.  On  Sep- 
tember 9,  1653,  the  publisher  Humphrey  Moseley 
obtained  a  license  for  the  publication  of  a  play  which 
he  described  as  '  History  of  Cardenio,  by  Fletcher 
and  Shakespeare.'  This  was  probably  identical  with 
The  lost  ^^^  ^*^^^  pl-^Y'  '  Cardenno,'  or  '  Cardenna,' 
play  of        which  was  twice  acted  at  Court  by  Shake- 

'  Cardenio.'  ,  •         ^    ^  •       T\/r  j       • 

speare  s  company  m  1013  —  m  May  durmg 
the  Princess  Elizabeth's  marriage  festivities,  and  on 
June  8  before  the  duke  of  Savoy's  ambassador.^ 
Moseley,  whose  description  may  have  been  fraudulent,^ 

1  Treasurer's  accounts  in  Ravvl.  MS.,  A  239,  leaf  47  (in  the 
Bodleian),  printed  in  New  Shakspere  Society's  Iransactions,  1 895-6, 
part  ii.  p.  419. 

2  77^1?  Merry  Devill  of  Ediitontoii,  a  comedy  which  was  first 
published  in  160S,  was  also  re-entered  by  Moseley  for  publication  on 
September  9,  1653,  as  the  work  of  Shakespeare  (see  p.  181,  supra). 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  259 

failed  to  publish  the  piece,  and  nothing  is  otherwise 
known  of  it  with  certainty ;  but  it  was  no  doubt  a 
dramatic  version  of  the  adventures  of  the  lovelorn 
Cardenio  which  are  related  in  the  first  part  of  '  Don 
Quixote'  (ch.  xxiii.-xxxvii.).  Cervantes's  amorous 
story,  which  first  appeared  in  English  in  Thomas 
Shelton's  translation  in  161 2,  offers  much  incident  in 
Fletcher's  vein.  When  Lewis  Theobald,  the  Shake- 
spearean critic,  brought  out  his  '  Double  Falshood, 
or  the  Distrest  Lovers,'  in  1727,  he  mysteriously 
represented  that  the  play  was  based  on  an  unfinished 
and  unpublished  draft  of  a  play  by  Shakespeare. 
The  story  of  Theobald's  piece  is  the  story  of  Car- 
denio, although  the  characters  are  renamed.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  play  as  published  by  Theobald 
to  suggest  Shakespeare's  hand,^  but  Theobald  doubt- 
less took  advantage  of  a  tradition  that  Shakespeare 
and  Fletcher  had  combined  to  dramatise  the  Cer- 
vantic  theme. 

Two  other  pieces,  '  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  '  and 
'  Henry  VIII,'  which  are  attributed  to  a  similar  partner- 
ship, survive.^  '  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  '  was  first 
.^^^,^  printed  in    1634,  and  was   written,  accord- 

Nobie         ing   to   the   title-page,  'by   the    memorable 
worthies  of   their  time,  Mr.  John  Fletcher 

1  Dyce  thought  he  detected  traces  of  Shirley's  workmanship,  but  it 
was  possibly  Theobald's  unaided  invention. 

-  The  1634  quarto  of  the  play  was  carefully  edited  for  the  New 
Shakspere  Society  by  Mr.  Harold  Littledale  in  1876.  See  also 
Spalding,  Shakespeay-e's  Authorship  of  '■Two  Noble  Kinsmen^  "^^liZi 
reprinted  by  New  Shakspere  Society,  1876;  Spalding  in  Edinburgh 
J\'eview,  1847;    Transactions,  New  Shakspere  Society,  1874. 


26o  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

and  ]\Ir  William  Shakespeare,  gentlemen.'  It  was 
included  in  the  folio  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  of 
1679.  On  grounds  alike  of  aesthetic  criticism  and 
metrical  tests,  a  substantial  portion  of  the  play  was 
assigned  to  Shakespeare  by  Charles  Lamb,  Coleridge, 
and  Dyce.  The  last  included  it  in  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare. Coleridge  detected  Shakespeare's  hand  in  act 
I.,  act  n.  sc.  i.,  and  act  in.  sc.  i.  and  ii.  In  addition  to 
those  scenes,  act  iv.  sc.  iii.  and  act  v.  (except  sc.  ii.) 
were  subsequently  placed  to  his  credit.  Some  recent 
critics  assign  much  of  the  alleged  Shakespearean  work 
to  Massinger,  and  they  narrow  Shakespeare's  contri- 
bution to  the  first  scene  (with  the  opening  song,  'Roses 
their  sharp  spines  being  gone')  and  act  v.  sc.  i.  and 
iv.^  An  exact  partition  is  impossible,  but  frequent 
signs  of  Shakespeare's  workmanship  are  unmistak- 
able. All  the  passages  for  which  Shakespeare 
can  on  any  showing  be  held  responsible  develop  the 
main  plot,  which  is  drawn  from  Chaucer's  '  Knight's 
Tale '  of  Palamon  and  Arcite,  and  seems  to  have 
been  twice  dramatised  previously.  A  lost  play, 
'  Palcemon  and  Arcyte,'  by  Richard  Edwardes,  was 
acted  at  Court  in  1566,  and  a  second  piece,  called 
*  Palamon  and  Arsett '  (also  lost),  was  purchased  by 
Henslowe  in  1594.  The  non-Shakespearean  residue 
of  '  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen '  is  disfigured  by 
indecency  and  triviality,  and  is  of  no  literary 
value. 

A  like  problem  is    presented  by  '  Henry  VIII.' 

1  Cf.  Mr.   Robert  Boyle   in    Transactions  of  the    New  Shakspere 
Society,  1882. 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  26 1 

The  play  was  nearly  associated  with  the  final  scene 
in  the  history  of  that  theatre  which  was  identified 
with  the  triumphs  of  Shakespeare's  career.  '  Henry 
yill '  was  in  course  of  performance  at  the  Globe 
Theatre  on  June  29,  161 3,  when  the  firing  of  some 
cannon  incidental  to  the  performance  set  fire  to  the 
playhouse,  which  was  burned  down.  The  theatre 
■  Henry  ^^'as  rebuilt  next  year,  but  the  new  fabric 
^^^U-'  never  acquired  the  fame  of    the    old.      Sir 

Henry  Wotton,  describing  the  disaster  on  July  2, 
entitled  the  piece  that  was  in  process  of  representa- 
tion at  the  time  as  '  All  is  True  representing  some 
principal  pieces  in  the  Reign  of  Henry  VHI.'^     The 

^  Reliquitz  IVottonianeE,  1675,  pp.  425-6.  Wotton  adds  'that  the 
piece  was  set  forth  with  many  extraordinary  circumstances  of  Pomp  and 
Majesty,  even  to  the  matting  of  the  Stage;  the  Knights  of  the  Order, 
with  their  Georges  and  Garters,  the  Guards  with  their  embroidered  Coats, 
and  the  like :  sufficient  in  truth  within  a  while  to  make  greatness  very 
familiar,  if  not  ridiculous.  Now  King  Henry  making  a  Masque  at  the 
Cardinal  Wolseys  House,  and  certain  Canons  being  shot  off  at  his  entry', 
some  of  the  paper  or  other  stuff  wherewith  one  of  them  was  stopped,  did 
light  on  the  Thatch,  where  being  thought  at  first  but  an  idle  smoak,  and 
their  eyes  more  attentive  to  the  shew,  it  kindled  inwardly,  and  ran 
round  like  a  train,  consuming  within  less  than  an  hour  the  whole  House 
to  the  very  grounds.  This  was  the  fatal  period  of  that  vertuous  fabrique; 
wherein  yet  nothing  did  perish,  but  wood  and  straw  and  a  few  forsaken 
cloaks;  only  one  man  had  his  breeches  set  on  fire,  that  would  perhaps 
have  broyled  him,  if  he  had  not  by  the  benefit  of  a  provident  wit  put  it  out 
with  bottle[d]  ale.'  John  Chamberlain  writing  to  Sir  Ralph  Winwood 
on  July  8,  1613,  briefly  mentions  that  the  theatre  was  burnt  to  the 
ground  in  less  than  two  hours,  owing  to  the  accidental  ignition  of  the 
thatch  roof  through  the  firing  of  cannon  '  to  be  used  in  the  play.'  The 
audience  escaped  unhurt  though  they  had  '  but  two  narrow  doors  to  get 
out'  (Winvvood's  Memorials,  iii.  p.  469).  A  similar  account  was  sent 
by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Lorkin  to  Sir  Thomas  Puckering,  Bart.,  from  Lon- 
don, June  30,  1613.     'The  fire  broke  out,'  Lorkin  writes, 'no  longer 


262  WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE 

play  of  'Henry  VIII'  that  is  commonly  allotted  to 
Shakespeare  is  loosely  constructed,  and  the  last  act  ill 
coheres  with  its  predecessors.  The  whole  resembles  an 
'  historical  masque.'  It  was  first  printed  in  the  folio  of 
Shakespeare's  works  in  1623,  but  shows  traces  of  more 
hands  than  one.  The  three  chief  characters  —  the  king, 
Queen  Katharine  of  Arragon,  and  Cardinal  Wolsey 
—  bear  clear  marks  of  Shakespeare's  best  workman- 
ship ;  but  only  act  i.  sc.  i.,  act  11.  sc.  iii.  and.iv. 
(Katharine's  trial),  act  iii.  sc.  ii.  (except  11.  204  460), 
act  V.  sc.  i.,  can  on  either  aesthetic  or  metrical  grounds 
be  confidently  assigned  to  him.  These  portions  may, 
according  to  their  metrical  characteristics,  be  dated, 
like  the  '  Winter's  Tale,'  about  1611.  There  are  good 
grounds  for  assigning  nearly  all  the  remaining  thirteen 
scenes  to  the  pen  of  Fletcher,  with  occasional  aid  from 
Massinger.  Wolsey's  familiar  farewell  to  Cromwell 
(act  III.  sc.  ii.  11.  204-460)  is  the  only  passage  the 
authorship  of  which  excites  really  grave  embarrass- 
ment. It  recalls  at  every  point  the  style  of  Fletcher, 
and  nowhere  thatof  Shakespeare.  But  the  Fletcherian 
style,  as  it  is  here  displayed,  is  invested  with  a  great- 
ness that  is  not  matched  elsewhere  in  Fletcher's  work. 
That  Fletcher  should  have  exhibited  such  faculty  once 

since  than  yesterday,  while  Burbage's  company  were  acting  at  the  Globe 
the  play. of  Henry  VHP  {^C our  t  and  Times  of  James  I,  1848,  vol.  i. 
p.  253).  A  contemporary  sonnet  on  '  the  pittifull  burning  of  the  Globe 
playhouse  in  London,'  first  printed  by  Haslewood  '  from  an  old  manu- 
script volume  of  poems'  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  1816,  was 
again  printed  by  Halliwell-Phillipps  (i.  pp.  310-11)  from  an  authentic 
manuscript  in  the  Hbrary  of  Sir  Matthew  Wilson,  Bart.,  of  Eshton  Hall, 
Yorkshire. 


THE   LATEST   PLAYS  263 

and  once  only  is  barely  credible,  and  we  are  driven  to 
the  alternative  conclusion  that  the  noble  valediction  was 
by  Shakespeare,  who  in  it  gave  proof  of  his  versatility 
by  echoing  in  a  glorified  key  the  habitual  strain  of 
Fletcher,  his  colleague  and  virtual  successor.  James 
Spedding's  theory  that  Fletcher  hastily  completed 
Shakespeare's  unfinished  draft  for  the  special  purpose 
of  enabling  the  company  to  celebrate  the  marriage  of 
Princess  Elizabeth  and  the  Elector  Palatine,  which 
took  place  on  February  14,  161 2-1 3,  seems  fanciful. 
During  May  1613,  according  to  an  extant  list,  nineteen 
plays  were  produced  at  Court  in  honour  of  the  event, 
but  'Henry  VIII'  is  not  among  them.^  The  con- 
jecture that  Massinger  and  Fletcher  alone  collaborated 
in  'Henry  VIII'  (to  the  exclusion  of  Shakespeare 
altogether)  does  not  deserve  serious  consideration.^ 

1  Bodl.  ATS.  Rawl.  A  239;  cf.  Spedding  in  Gentleman'' s  Maga- 
zine, 1850,  reprinted  in  Xew  Shakspere  Society's  Transactions,  1874. 

-  Cf.  Mr.  Robert  Boyle  in  New  Shakspere  Society's  Transactions, 
1884. 


264  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


XVI 

THE    CLOSE    OF  LIFE 

The  concluding  years  of  Shakespeare's  life  (1611- 
16)  were  mainly  passed  at  Stratford.  It  is  probable 
that  in  16  ii  he  disposed  of  his  shares  in  the  Globe  and 
Blackfriars  theatres.  He  owned  none  at  the  date  of 
his  death.  But  until  1614  he  paid  frequent  visits  to 
London,  where  friends  in  sympathy  with  his  work 
were  alone  to  be  found.  His  plays  continued  to  form 
the  staple  of  Court  performances.  In  May  '1613, 
D,       ,       during   the    Princess    Elizabeth's    marriage 

Plays  at  o  t> 

Court  in       festivities,    Heming,    Shakespeare's   former 
^^'  colleague,   produced    at   Whitehall   no    less 

than  seven  of  his  plays,  viz.  '  Much  Ado,'  'Tempest,' 
'Winter's  Tale,'  'Sir  John  Falstaff '  {i.e.  'Merry 
Wives'),  'Othello,'  'Julius  Caesar,'  and  'Hotspur' 
(doubtless  '  i  Henry  IV  ')}  Of  his  actor-friends,  one 
Actor-  of  the  chief,  Augustine  Phillips,  had  died  in 
friends.  1605,  leaving  by  will  '  to  my  fellowe,  William 
Shakespeare,  a  thirty-shillings  piece  of  gold.'  With 
Burbage,  Heming,  and  Condell  his  relations  remained 
close  to  the  end.  Burbage,  according  to  a  poetic 
elegy,  made  his  reputation  by  creating  the  leading 
parts  in  Shakespeare's  greatest  tragedies.     Hamlet, 

1  Ilalliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  87. 


THE   CLOSE   OF   LIFE  265 

Othello,  and  Lear  were  roles  in  which  he  gained 
especial  renown.  But  Burbage  and  Shakespeare 
were  popularly  credited  with  co-operation  in  less 
solemn  enterprises.  They  were  reputed  to  be 
companions  in  many  sportive  adventures.  The  sole 
anecdote  of  Shakespeare  that  is  positively  known 
to  have  been  recorded  in  his  lifetime  relates  that 
Burbage,  when  playing  Richard  III,  agreed  with 
a  lady  in  the  audience  to  visit  her  after  the  perform- 
ance ;  Shakespeare,  overhearing  the  conversation, 
anticipated  the  actor's  visit,  and  met  Burbage  on  his 
arrival  with  the  quip  that  'William  the  Conqueror 
was  before  Richard  the  Third.'  ^ 

Such  gossip  possibly  deserves  little  more  accept- 
ance than  the  later  story,  in  the  same  key,  which 
credits  Shakespeare  with  the  paternity  of  Sir  William 
D'Avenant.  The  latter  was  baptised  at  Oxford  on 
March  3,  1605,  as  the  son  of  John  D'Avenant,  the 
landlord  of  the  Crown  Inn,  where  Shakespeare  lodged 
in  his  journeys  to  and  from  Stratford.  The  story 
of  Shakespeare's  parental  relation  to  D'Avenant 
was  long  current  in  Oxford,  and  was  at  times  com- 
placently accepted  by  the  reputed  son.  Shakespeare 
is  known  to  have  been  a  welcome  guest  at  John 
D'Avenant's  house,  and  another  son,  Robert,  boasted 
of  the  kindly  notice  which  the  poet  took  of  him 
as  a  child. ^  It  is  safer  to  adopt  the  less  compro- 
mising version  which  makes    Shakespeare  the  god- 

1  Manningham,  Diary,  March  13,  1601,  Camd.  Soc.  p.  39. 

2  Cf.  Aubrey,  Lives;  Halliwell-Phillipps,  ii.  43;  and  art.  Sir 
William  D'Avenant,  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 


266  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

father  of  the  boy  William  instead  of  his  father.  But 
the  antiquity  and  persistence  of  the  scandal  belie  the 
assumption  that  Shakespeare  was  known  to  his  con- 
temporaries as  a  man  of  scrupulous  virtue.  Ben 
Jonson  and  Drayton  — the  latter  a  Warwickshire  man 
—  seem  to  have  been  Shakespeare's  closest  literary 
friends  in  his  latest  years. 

At  Stratford,  in  the  words  of  Nicholas  Rowe, '  the 
latter  part  of  Shakespeare's  life  was  spent,  as  all  men 
Fi  ai  etti  °^  good  scnsc  will  wish  theirs  may  be,  in 
ment  at  casc,  retirement,  and  the  conversation  of  his 
friends.'  As  a  resident  in  the  town,  he  took 
a  full  share  of  social  and  civic  responsibilities.  On 
October  i6,  1608,  he  stood  chief  godfather  to  Will- 
iam, son  of  Henry  Walker,  a  mercer  and  alderman. 
On  September  11,  161 1,  when  he  had  finally  settled 
in  New  Place,  his  name  appeared  in  the  margin  of  a 
folio  page  of  donors  (including  all  the  principal  in- 
habitants of  Stratford)  to  a  fund  that  was  raised 
'  towards  the  charge  of  prosecuting  the  bill  in  Parlia- 
ment for  the  better  repair  of  the  highways.' 

Meanwhile  his  own  domestic  affairs  engaged  some 
of  his  attention.  Of  his  two  surviving  children  — 
both  daughters  — the  eldest,  Susannah,  had  married, 
on  June  5,  1607,  John  Hall  (i  575-1635),  a  rising  physi- 
cian of  puritan  leanings,  and  in  the  following  Feb- 
ruary there  was  born  the  poet's  only  granddaughter, 
Elizabeth  Hall.  On  September  9,  1608,  the  poet's 
Domestic  mother  was  buried  in  the  parish  church,  and 
affau-s.  Qj^  February  4,  16 13,  his  third  brother 
Richard.      On   July  15,   161 3,  Mrs.  Hall  preferred, 


^^P^/V  i  (^  *^Xi»  V 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AUTOGRAPH  SIGNATURE  APPENDED  TO 
THE  PURCHASE-DEP:D  of  A  HOUSE  IN  BLACKFRIARS 
ON    MARCH    lo,    1612-13. 

Reproduced  from  the  original  document  now  preserved  in  the  Guildhall 
Library,  London. 


THE  CLOSE   OF   LIFE  267 

with  her  father's  assistance,  a  charge  of  slander 
against  one  Lane  in  the  ecclesiasical  court  at  Worces- 
ter ;  the  defendant,  who  had  apparently  charged  the 
lady  with  illicit  relations  with  one  Ralph  Smith,  did 
not  appear,  and  was  excommunicated. 

In  the  same  year  (161 3),  when  on  a  short  visit  to 
London,  he  invested  a  small  sum  of  money  in  a  new 
Purchase  property.  This  was  his  last  investment  in 
of  a  house         |  estate.     He  then  purchased  a  house,  the 

in  Black-  ^  ' 

friars.  ground-floor  of  which  was  a  haberdasher's 

shop,  with  a  yard  attached.  It  was  situated  within 
six  hundred  feet  of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  —  on  the 
west  side  of  St.  Andrew's  Hill,  formerly  termed  Pud- 
dle Hill  or  Puddle  Dock  Hill,  in  the  near  neighbour- 
hood of  what  is  now  known  as  Ireland  Yard.  The 
former  owner,  Henry  Walker,  a  musician,  had  bought 
the  property  for  100/.  in  1604.  Shakespeare  in  161 3 
agreed  to  pay  him  140/.  The  deeds  of  conveyance 
bear  the  date  of  March  10  in  that  year.^  Next  day, 
on  March  11,  Shakespeare  executed  another  deed 
(now  in  the  British  Museum)  which  stipulated  that 
60/.  of  the  purchase-money  was  to  remain  on  mort- 
gage until  the  following  Michaelmas.  The  money 
was  unpaid  at  Shakespeare's  death.  In  both  pur- 
chase-deed and  mortgage-deed  Shakespeare's  signa- 
ture was  witnessed  by,  among  others,  Henry  Law- 
rence, '  servant '  or  clerk  to  Robert    Andrewes,  the 

1  The  indenture  prepared  for  the  purchaser  is  in  the  Halliwell- 
Fhillipps  collection,  which  was  sold  to  Mr.  Marsden  J.  Perry  of  Provi- 
dence, Rhode  Island,  U.  S.  A.,  in  January  1897.  That  held  by  the 
vendor  is  in  the  Guildhall  Library. 


268  \villia:\i  Shakespeare 

scrivener  who  drew  the  deeds,  and  Lawrence's  seal, 
bearing;  his  initials  '  H.  L.,'  was  stamped  in  each  case 
on  the  parchment  tag  across  the  head  of  which 
Shakespeare  wrote  his  name.  In  all  three  docu- 
ments —  the  two  indentures  and  the  mortgage-deed 
—  Shakespeare  is  described  as  '  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
in  the  Countie  of  Warwick,  Gentleman.'  There  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  acquired  the  house  for 
his  own  residence.  He  at  once  leased  the  property 
to  John  Robinson,  already  a  resident  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. 

With  puritans  and  puritanism  Shakespeare  was 
not  in  sympathy,^  and  he  could  hardly  have  viewed 
with  unvarying  composure  the  steady  progress  that 
puritanism  was  making  among  his  fellow-townsmen. 
Nevertheless  a  preacher,  doubtless  of  puritan  pro- 
clivities, was  entertained  at  Shakespeare's  residence, 
New  Place,  after  delivering  a  sermon  in  the  spring  of 
1614.  The  incident  might  serve  to  illustrate  Shake- 
speare's characteristic  placability,  but  his  son-in-law 

1  Shakespeare's  references  to  puritans  in  the  plays  of  his  middle 
and  late  life  are  so  uniformly  discourteous  that  they  must  be  judged  to 
reflect  his  personal  feeling.  The  discussion  between  Maria  and  Sir 
Andrew  Aguecheek  regarding  Malvolio's  character  in  Twelfth  Night 
(11.  iii.  153  seq.)  runs: 

Maria.     Marry,  sir,  sometimes  he  is  a  kind  of  puritan. 

Sir  Andrew.     O!   if  I  thought  that,  I'd  beat  him  like  a  dog. 

Sir  Toby.     What,  for  being  a  puritan  ?  thy  exquisite  reason,  dear  knight. 

Sir  Andrew.     I  have  no  exquisite  reason  for  't,  but  I  have  reason  good  enough. 

In  Winter''s  Tale  (iv.  iii.  46)  the  Clown,  after  making  contemptuous 
references  to  the  character  of  the  shearers,  remarks  that  there  is  '  but  one 
puritan  amongst  them,  and  he  sings  psalms  to  hornpipes.'  Cf.  the 
allusions  to  'grace'  and  'election'  in  Cyjnbeline,  p.  250,  note  i. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  AUTOGRAPH  SIGNATURE  APPENDED  TO 
A  DEED  MORTGAGING  HIS  HOUSE  IN  BLACKFRIARS 
ON    MARCH    II,    1612-13. 

Reproduced  from   the   original  document   now   preserved   in   the  British 
Museum. 


THE  CLOSE  OF  LIFE  269 

Hall,  who  avowed  sympathy  with  puritanism,  was  prob- 
ably in  the  main  responsible  for  the  civility.^  In  July 
John  Combe,  a  rich  inhabitant  of  Stratford,  died  and 
left  5/.  to  Shakespeare.  The  legend  that  Shakespeare 
alienated  him  by  composing  some  doggerel  on  his 
practice  of  lending  money  at  ten  or  twelve  per  cent, 
seems  apocryphal,  although  it  is  quoted  by  Aubrey  and 
accepted  by  Rowe.^  Combe's  death  involved  Shake- 
speare more  conspicuously  than  before  in  civic  affairs. 
Combe's  heir  William  no  sooner  succeeded  to  his 
father's  lands  than  he,  with  a-  neighbouring  owner, 

1  The  town  council  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  whose  meeting-chamber 
ahnost  overlooked  Shakespeare's  residence  of  New  Place,  gave  curious 
proof  of  their  puritanic  suspicion  of  the  drama  on  February  7,  1612, 
when  they  passed  a  resolution  that  plays  were  unlawful  and  '  the  suffer- 
ance of  them  against  the  orders  heretofore  made  and  against  the 
example  of  other  well-governed  cities  and  boroughs,'  and  the  council 
was  therefore  '  content,'  the  resolution  ran,  that  '  the  penalty  of  xs. 
imposed  [on  players  heretofore]  be  x/i.  henceforward.'  Ten  years  later 
the  King's  players  were  bribed  by  the  council  to  leave  the  city  without 
playing  (see  the  present  writer's  Stratford-on-Avon,  p.  270). 

2  The  lines  as  quoted  by  Aubrey  (^Lives,  ed.  Clark,  ii.  226)  run  : 

Ten-in-the-hundred  the  Devil  allows, 

But  Combe- will  have  twelve  he  sweares  and  he  vowes; 

If  any  man  ask,  who  lies  in  this  tomb? 

Oh!   ho!  quoth  the  Devil,  'tis  my  John-a-Combe. 

Rowe's  version  opens  somewhat  differently : 

Ten-in-the-hundred  lies  here  ingrav'd. 
'Tis  a  hundred  to  ten,  his  soul  is  not  sav'd. 

The  lines,  in  one  form  or  another,  seem  to  have  been  widely  familiar  in 
Shakespeare's  lifetime,  but  were  not  ascribed  to  him.  The  first  two  in 
Rowe's  version  were  printed  in  the  epigrams  by  n[enry]  P[arrot],  1608, 
and  again  in  Camden's  Remains,  1 614.  The  whole  first  appeared  in 
Richard  Brathwaite's  Remains  in  1618  under  the  heading:  'Upon  one 
John  Combe  of  Stratford  upon  Aven,  a  notable  Usurer,  fastened  upon 
a  Tombe  that  he  had  Caused  to  be  built  in  his  Life  Time. 


2/0  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Arthur  Mannering,  steward  of  Lord-Chancellor  Elles- 
mere  (who  was  ex-officio  lord  of  the  manor),  attempted 
Attempt  to  to  enclose  the  common  fields,  which  belonged 
enclose  the  ^q  t^g  Corporation  of  Stratford,  about  his 
common  cstate  at  Welcombe.  The  Corporation  re- 
fieids.  solved  to  offer  the  scheme  a  stout  resistance. 

Shakespeare  had  a  twofold  interest  in  the  matter  by- 
virtue  of  his  owning  the  freehold  of  io6  acres  at  Wel- 
combe and  Old  Stratford,  and  as  joint  owner  — now 
with  Thomas  Greene,  the  town  clerk  —  of  the  tithes  of 
Old  Stratford,  Welcombe,  and  Bishopton.  His  inter- 
est in  his  freeholds  could  not  have  been  prejudicially 
affected,  but  his  interest  in  the  tithes  might  be  depreci- 
ated by  the  proposed  enclosure.  Shakespeare  conse- 
quently joined  with  his  fellow-owner  Greene  in  obtain- 
ing from  Combe's  agent  Replingham  in  October  1614 
a  deed  indemnifying  both  against  any  injury  they 
might  suffer  from  the  enclosure.  But  having  thus 
secured  himself  against  all  possible  loss,  Shakespeare 
threw  his  influence  into  Combe's  scale.  In  November 
16 14  he  was  on  a  last  visit  to  London,  and  Greene, 
whose  official  position  as  town  clerk  compelled  him 
to  support  the  Corporation  in  defiance  of  his  private 
interests,  visited  him  there  to  discuss  the  position  of 
affairs.  On  December  23,  16 14,  the  Corporation  in 
formal  meeting  drew  up  a  letter  to  Shakespeare  im- 
ploring him  to  aid  them.  Greene  himself  sent  to  the 
dramatist  '  a  note  of  inconveniences  [to  the  Corpora- 
tion that]  would  happen  by  the  enclosure.'  But 
although  an  ambiguous  entry  of  a  later  date  (Sep- 
tember 161 5)  in    the  few  extant  pages  of  Greene's 


THE   CLOSE   OF   LIFE  2/1 

ungrammatical  diary  has  been  unjustifiably  tortured 
into  an  expression  of  disgust  on  Shakespeare's  part 
at  Combe's  conduct,^  it  is  plain  that,  in  the  spirit  of 
his  agreement  with  Combe's  agent,  he  continued  to 
lend  Combe  his  countenance.  Happily  Combe's 
efforts  failed,  and  the  common  lands  remain  un- 
enclosed. 

At  the  beginning  of  1616  Shakespeare's  health 
was  failing.  He  directed  Francis  Collins,  a  solicitor  of 
Warwick,  to  draft  his  will,  but,  though  it  was  prepared 
for  signature  on  January  25,  it  was  for  the  time  laid 
aside.  On  February  10,  1616,  Shakespeare's  younger 
daughter,  Judith,  married,  at  Stratford  parish  church, 
Thomas  Quiney,  four  years  her  junior,  a  son  of  an  old 
friend  of  the  poet.  The  ceremony  took  place  appar- 
ently without  public  asking  of  the  banns  and  before 
a  license  was  procured.  The  irregularity  led  to 
the  summons  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  to  the 
ecclesiastical  court  at  Worcester  and  the  imposition 
of  a  fine.     According  to  the  testimony  of  John  Ward, 

1  The  clumsy  entry  runs :  '  Sept.  Mr.  Shakespeare  tellyng  J, 
Greene  that  I  was  not  able  to  beare  the  encloseing  of  Welcombe.' 
J.  Greene  is  to  be  distinguished  from  Thomas  Greene,  the  writer  of  the 
diary.  The  entry  therefore  implies  that  Shakespeare  told  J.  Greene 
that  the  writer  of  the  diary,  Thomas  Greene,  was  not  able  to  bear  the 
enclosure.  Those  who  represent  Shakespeare  as  a  champion  of  popular 
rights  have  to  read  the  '  I '  in  'I  was  not  able '  as  '  he.'  Were  that 
the  correct  reading,  Shakespeare  would  be  rightly  credited  with  telling 
J.  Greene  that  he  disliked  the  enclosure;  but  palaeographers  only 
recognise  the  reading  '  I.'  Cf.  Shakespeare  a^ui  the  Enclosure  of 
Conunott  Fields  at  Welcombe,  a  facsimile  of  Greene's  diary,  now  at 
the  Birthplace,  Stratford,  with  a  transcript  by  Mr.  E,  J.  L.  Scott,  edited 
by  Dr.  C.  M.  Ingleby,  1885. 


2/2  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

the  vicar,  Shakespeare  entertained  at  New  Place  his 

two  friends,  Michael  Drayton  and  Ben  Jonson,  in  this 

same  spring  of  1616,  and  *  had  a  merry  meet- 
Death.         .  ■' 

mg,     but    'itt   seems    drank  too   hard,    for 

Shakespeare  died  of  a  feavour  there  contracted.'  A 
popular  local  legend,  which  was  not  recorded  till 
1762,1  credited  Shakespeare  with  engaging  at  an 
earlier  date  in  a  prolonged  and  violent  drinking  bout 
at  Bidford,  a  neighbouring  village,^  but  his  achieve- 
ments as  a  hard  drinker  may  be  dismissed  as 
unproven.  The  cause  of  his  death  is  undetermined, 
but  probably  his  illness  seemed  likely  to  take  a  fatal 
turn  in  March,  when  he  revised  and  signed  the  will 
that  had  been  drafted  in  the  previous  January.  On 
Tuesday,  April  23,  he  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-two.^ 
On  Thursday,  April  25  (O.S.)  the  poet  was 
buried  inside  Stratford  Church,  near  the 
northern  wall  of  the  chancel,  in  which,  as  part-owner 
of  the  tithes,  and  consequently  one  of  the  lay-rectors, 
he  had  a  right  of  interment.  Hard  by  was  the  charnel- 
house,  where  bones  dug  up  from  the  churchyard  were 
deposited.  Over  the  poet's  grave  were  inscribed  the 
lines : 

Good  friend,  for  Jesus'  sake  forbeare 
To  dig  the  dust  enclosed  heare; 
Bleste  be  the  man  that  spares  these  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  that  moves  my  bones. 

1  British  Magazine,  June  1762. 

2  Cf.  Malone,  Shakespeare,  1 82 1,  ii.  500-2;  Ireland,  Confessions, 
1805,  p.  34;    Green,  Legend  of  the  Crab  Tree,  1857. 

^  The  date  is  in  the  old  style,  and  is  equivalent  to  May  3  in  the 
new;  Cervantes,  whose  death  is  often  described  as  simultaneous,  died 
at  Madrid  ten  days  earlier  —  on  April  13,  in  the  old  style,  or  April  23, 
1616,  in  the  new. 


^ 


THE   CLOSE   OF   IJFE  2/3 

According  to  one  William  Hall,  who  described  a 
visit  to  Stratford  in  1694/  these  verses  were  penned 
by  Shakespeare  to  suit  '  the  capacity  of  clerks  and 
sextons,  for  the  most  part  a  very  ignorant  set  of 
people.'  Had  this  curse  not  threatened  them,  Hall 
proceeds,  the  sexton  would  not  have  hesitated  in 
course  of  time  to  remove  Shakespeare's  dust  to  'the 
bone-house.'  As  it  was,  the  grave  was  made  seven- 
teen feet  deep,  and  was  never  opened,  even  to  receive 
his  wife,  although  she  expressed  a  desire  to  be  buried 
with  her  husband. 

Shakespeare's  will,  the  first  draft  of  which  was 

drawn  up  before  January  25,   1616,  received   many 

interlineations  and  erasures  before  it  was 

The  will. 

Signed  m  the  ensumg  March.  Francis 
Collins,  the  solicitor  of  Warwick,  and  Thomas  Russell, 
'esquier,'  of  Stratford,  were  the  overseers;  it  was 
proved  by  John  Hall,  the  poet's  son-in-law  and  joint- 
executor  with  Mrs.  Hall,  in  London  on  June  22 
following.  The  religious  exordium  is  in  conventional 
phraseology,  and  gives  no  clue  to  Shakespeare's 
personal  religious  opinions.  What  those  opinions 
were,  we  have  neither  the  means  nor  the  warrant  for 
discussing.  But  while  it  is  possible  to  quote  from  the 
plays  many  contemptuous  references  to  the  puritans 
and  their  doctrines,  we  may  dismiss  as  idle  gossip 
Davies's  irresponsible  report  that  '  he  dyed  a  papist.' 
The  name  of  Shakespeare's  wife  was  omitted  from 
the  original  draft  of  the  will,  but  by  an  interlineation 

1  Hall's  letter  was  published  as  a  quarto  pamphlet  at  London  in 
1884,  from  the  original,  now  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford. 
T 


2/4  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

in  the  final  draft  she  received  his  second  best  bed 
with  its  furniture.  No  other  bequest  was  made  her. 
Bequest  to  Several  wills  of  the  period  have  been  dis- 
his  wife.  covered  in  which  a  bedstead  or  other  article 
of  household  furniture  formed  part  of  a  wife's  inheri- 
tance, but  none  except  Shakespeare's  is  forthcoming 
in  which  a  bed  forms  the  sole  bequest.  At  the  same 
time  the  precision  with  which  Shakespeare's  will  ac- 
counts for  and  assigns  to  other  legatees  every  known 
item  of  his  property  refutes  the  conjecture  that  he 
had  set  aside  any  portion  of  it  under  a  previous 
settlement  or  jointure  with  a  view  to  making  inde- 
pendent provision  for  his  wife.  Her  right  to  a  widow's 
dower —  i.e.  to  a  third  share  for  life  in  freehold  estate 
—  was  not  subject  to  testamentary  disposition,  but 
Shakespeare  had  taken  steps  to  prevent  her  from 
benefiting  —  at  any  rate  to  the  full  extent  —  by 
that  legal  arrangement.  He  had  barred  her  dower 
in  the  case  of  his  latest  purchase  of  freehold 
estate,   viz.,   the  house   at    Blackfriars.  ^     Such  pro- 

^  Mr.  Charles  Elton,  Q.C.,  has  been  kind  enough  to  give  me  a  legal 
opinion  on  this  point.  He  wrote  to  me  on  December  9,  1897:  'I 
have  looked  to  the  authorities  with  my  friend  Mr.  Herbert  Mackay, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  Shakespeare  barred  the  dower.'  Mr. 
Mackay's  opinion  is  couched  in  the  following  terms:  'The  conveyance 
of  the  Elackfriars  estate  to  William  Shakespeare  in  161 3  shows  that 
the  estate  was  conveyed  to  Shakespeare,  Johnson,  Jackson,  and 
Hemming  as  joint  tenants,  ami  therefore  the  dower  of  Shakespeare's 
wife  would  be  barred  unless  he  were  the  survivor  of  the  four  bar- 
gainees.' That  was  a  remote  contingency,  which  did  not  arise,  and 
Shakespeare  always  retained  the  power  of  making  '  another  settlement 
when  the  trustees  were  shrinking.'  Thus  the  bar  v\as  for  practical  pur- 
poses perpetual,  and  disposes  of  Mr.  Halliwell-Phillipps's  assertion  that 


THE  CLOSE   OF   LIFE  275 

cedure  is  pretty  conclusive  proof  that  he  had  the 
intention  of  excluding  her  from  the  enjoyment  of  his 
possessions  after  his  death.  But,  however  plausible 
the  theory  that  his  relations  with  her  were  from 
first  to  last  wanting  in  sympathy,  it  is  improbable 
that  either  the  slender  mention  of  her  in  the  will  or 
the  barring  of  her  dower  was  designed  by  Shake- 
speare to  make  public  his  indifference  or  dislike. 
Local  tradition  subsequently  credited  her  with  a  wish 
to  be  buried  in  his  grive ;  and  her  epitaph  proves 
that  she  inspired  her  daughters  with  genuine  affec- 
tion. Probably  her  ignorance  of  affairs  and  the 
infirmities  of  age  (she  was  past  sixty)  combined  to 
unfit  her  in  the  poet's  eyes  for  the  control  of  property, 
and,  as  an  act  of  ordinary  prudence,  he  committed  her 
to  the  care  of  his  elder  daughter,  who  inherited,  accord- 
ing to  such  information  as  is  accessible,  some  of  his  own 
shrewdness,  and  had  a  capable  adviser  in  her  husband. 
This  elder  daughter,  Susannah  Hall,  was,  accord- 
ing to  the  will,  to  become  the  mistress  of  New  Place, 
and  practically  of  all  the  poet's  estate.     She 

His  heiress.  .        .     ,      . 

received  (with  remainder  to  her  issue  m 
strict  entail)  New  Place,  all  the  land,  barns,  and  gar- 
dens at  and  near  Stratford  (except  the  tenement  in 
Chapel  Lane),  and  the  house  in  Blackfriars,  London, 
while  she  and  her  husband  were  appointed  executors 
and  residuary  legatees,  with  full  rights  over  nearly  all 
the  poet's  household  furniture  and  personal  belong- 

Shakespeare's  wife  was  entitled  to  dower  in  one  form  or  another  from 
all  his  real  estate.  Cf.  Davidson  on  Conveyancing ;  Littleton,  sect. 
45;    Coke  upon  LittJeton,  ed.  Hargrave,  p.  379<5,  note  I. 


2/6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

ings.  To  their  only  child  and  the  testator's  grand- 
daughter, or  '  niece,'  Elizabeth  Hall,  was  bequeathed 
the  poet's  plate,  with  the  exception  of  his  broad  silver 
and  gilt  bowl,  which  was  reserved  for  his  younger 
daughter,  Judith.  To  his  younger  daughter  he  also  left, 
with  the  tenement  in  Chapel  Lane  (in  remainder  to  the 
elder  daughter),  150/.  in  money,  of  which  100/.,  her 
marriage  portion,  was  to  be  paid  within  a  year,  and 
another  150/.  to  be  paid  to  her  if  alive  three  years 
after  the  date  of  the  will.i  To  the  poet's  sister,  Joan 
Hart,  whose  husband,  William  Hart,  predeceased  the 
testator  by  only  six  days,  he  left,  besides  a  contin- 
gent reversionary  interest  in  Judith's  pecuniary  leg- 
acy, his  wearing  apparel,  20/.  in  money,  a  life  interest 
in  the  Henley  Street  property,  with  5/.  for  each  of 
her  three  sons,  William,  Thomas,  and  Michael.  To 
the  poor  of  Stratford  he  gave  10/.,  and  to  Mr.  Thomas 
Legacies  Combc  (apparently  a  brother  of  William, 
to  friends.  Qf  ^\^q  enclosure  controversy)  his  sword. 
To  each  of  his  Stratford  friends,  Hamlett  Sadler, 
William  Reynoldes,  Anthony  Nash,  and  John 
Nash,  and  to  each  of  his  '  fellows  '  {i.e.  theatrical 
colleagues  in  London),  John  Heming,  Richard  Bur- 
bage,  and  Henry  Condell,  he  left  xxvjj-.  vn]d.,  with 
which  to  buy  memorial  rings.  His  godson,  William 
Walker,  received  '  xx '  shillings  in  gold. 

Before  1623^  an  elaborate  monument,  by  a  London 

1  A  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  is  described  as  a  substantial  jointure 
in  Merry  IVives,  ill.  iii.  1.  49. 

^  Leonard  Digges,  in  commendatory  verses  before  the  First  Folio  of 
1623,  wrote  that  Shakespeare's  works  would  be  alive 

[When]  Time  dissolves  thy  Stratford  monument. 


THE  CLOSE  OF   LIFE  2/7 

sculptor  of  Dutch  birth,  Gerard  Johnson,  was  erected 
to  Shakespeare's  memory  in  the  chancel  of 
the  parish  church.^  It  includes  a  half-length 
bust,  depicting  the  dramatist  on  the  point  of  writing. 
The  fingers  of  the  right  hand  are  disposed  as  if 
holding  a  pen,  and  under  the  left  hand  lies  a  quarto 
sheet  of  paper.  The  inscription,  which  was  appar- 
ently by  a  London  friend,  runs : 

Judicio  Pylium,  genio  Socratem,  arte  Maronem, 
Terra  tegit,  populus  mreret,  Olympus  habet. 

Stay  passenger,  why  goest  thou  by  so  fast? 
Read,  if  thou  canst,  whom  envious  death  hath  plast 
Within  this  monument;   Shakespeare  with  whome 
Quick  nature  dide;  whose  name  doth  deck  ys  tombe 
Far  more  than  cost;   sith  all  yt  he  hath  writt 
Leaves  living  art  but  page  to  serve  his  witt. 

Obiit  ano.  doi  1616  ^tatis  53  Die  23  Ap. 

At  the  opening  of  Shakespeare's  career  Chettle 
wrote  of  his  '  civil  demeanour '  and  of  the  reports  of 
Personal  '  his  Uprightness  of  dealing  which  argues  his 
character,  houcsty.'  In  1601  — when  near  the  zenith  of 
his  fame — he  was  apostrophised  as  'sweet  Master 
Shakespeare '  in  the  play  of  '  The  Return  from 
Parnassus,'  and  that  adjective  was  long  after  associ- 
ated with  his  name.  In  1604  one  Anthony  Scoloker 
in  a  poem  called  '  Daiphantus '  bestowed  on  him  the 
epithet  'friendly.'  After  the  close  of  his  career 
Jonson  wrote    of   him:    'I    loved   the    man    and   do 

1  Cf.  Dugdale,  Diary,  1827,  p.  99  ;  see  under  article  on  Bernard 
Janssen  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 


2/8  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

honour  his  memory,  on  this  side  idolatry  as  much  as 
any.  He  was,  indeed,  honest  and  of  an  open  and  free 
nature.'  ^  No  other  contemporary  left  on  record  any 
definite  impression  of  Shakespeare's  personal  char- 
'  acter,  and  the  '  Sonnets,'  which  alone  of  his  literary 
work  can  be  held  to  throw  any  illumination  on  a 
personal  trait,  mainly  reveal  him  in  the  light  of  one 
who  was  willing  to  conform  to  all  the  conventional 
methods  in  vogue  for  strengthening  the  bonds  between 
a  poet  and  a  great  patron.  His  literary  practices 
and  aims  were  those  of  contemporary  men  of  letters, 
and  the  difference  in  the  quality  of  his  work  and  theirs 
was  due  not  to  conscious  endeavour  on  his  part  to  act 
otherwise  than  they,  but  to  the  magic  and  involuntary 
working  of  his  genius.  He  seemed  unconscious  of 
his  marvellous  suj^eriority  to  his  professional  com- 
rades. The  references  in  his  will  to  his  fellow-actors, 
and  the  spirit  in  which  (as  they  announce  in  the  First 
Folio)  they  approached  the  task  of  collecting  his  works 
after  his  death,  corroborate  the  description  of  him 
as  a  sympathetic  friend  of  gentle,  unassuming  mien. 
The  later  traditions  brought  together  by  Aubrey 
depict  him  as  '  very  good  company,  and  of  a  very 
ready  and  pleasant  smooth  wit,'  and  there  is  much  in 
other  early  posthumous  references  to  suggest  a  genial, 
if  not  a  convivial,  temperament,  linked  to  a  quiet  turn 
for  good-humoured  satire.  But  Bohemian  ideals  and 
modes  of  life  had  no  genuine  attraction  for  Shake- 
speare.    His  extant  work  attests  his  '  copious '  and 

1  'Timber,'  in  Works,  164I. 


THE  CLOSE   OF   LIFE  279 

continuous  industry,^  and  with  his  literary  power  and 
sociability  there  clearly  went  the  shrewd  capacity  of 
a  man  of  business.  Pope  had  just  warrant  for  the 
surmise  that  he 

For  gain  not  glory  winged  his  roving  flight, 
And  grew  immortal  in  his  own  despite. 

His  literary  attainments  and  successes  were  chiefly 
valued  as  serving  the  prosaic  end  of  providing  per- 
manently for  himself  and  his  daughters.  His  highest 
ambition  was  to  restore  among  his  fellow-tow^nsmen 
the  family  repute  which  his  father's  misfortunes  had 
imperilled.  Ideals  so  homely  are  reckoned  rare  among 
poets,  but  Chaucer  and  Sir  Walter  Scott,  among 
writers  of  exalted  genius,  vie  with  Shakespeare  in  the 
sobriety  of  their  personal  aims  and  in  the  sanity  of 
their  mental  attitude  towards  life's  ordinary  incidents. 

1  John  Webster,  the  dramatist,  made  vague  reference  in  the 
address  before  his  'White  Divel'  in  1612  to  'the  right  happy  and 
copious  industry  of  M.  Shakespeare,  M.  Decker,  and  M.  Heywood.' 


28o  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


XVII 

SURVIVORS  AND  DESCENDANTS 

Shakespeare's  widow  died  on  August  6,  1623,  at 
the  age  of  sixtyrseven,  and  was  buried  near  her 
The  husband  inside  the  chancel  two  days  later. 

survivors.  Somc  affectionately  phrased  Latin  elegiacs 
—  doubtless  from  Dr.  Hall's  pen  —  were  inscribed  on 
a  brass  plate  fastened  to  the  stone  above  her  grave.^ 
The  younger  daughter,  Judith,  resided  with  her  hus- 
band, Thomas  Quiney,  at  The  Cage,  a  house  which  he 
leased  in  Bridge  Street  from  1616  till  1652.  There  he 
....  carried  on  the  trade  of  a  vintner,  and  took  part 

Mistress  _    _  _  '  ^ 

Judith  in  municipal  affairs,  acting  as  a  councillor 
Quiney.  fj-Qm  1617  and  as  chamberlain  in  162 1-2 
and  1622-3  ;  but  after  1630  his  affairs  grew  embar- 
rassed, and  he  left  Stratford  late  in  1652  for  London, 
where  he  seems  to  have  died  a  few  months  later.  Of 
his  three  sons  by  Judith,  the  eldest,  Shakespeare 
(baptised  on  November  23,  1616),  was  buried  in  Strat- 
ford Churchyard  on  May  8,   1617;  the  second  son, 

1  The  words  run  :  '  Heere  lyeth  interred  the  bodye  of  Anne,  wife  of 
Mr.  William  Shakespeare,  who  depted.  this  life  the  6th  day  of  August, 
1623,  being  of  the  age  of  67  yeares. 

'  Vbera,  tii,  mater,  tu  lac  vitamq.  dedisti, 

Vae  mihi:   pro  tanto  munere  saxa  dabo! 
Quam  mallem,  amoiieat  lapidem  bonus  Angel[us]  ore, 

Exeat  ut  Christi  Corpus,  imago  tua. 
Sed  nil  vota  valent;   venias  cito,  Christe  ;  resurget, 

Clausa  licet  tumulo,  mater,  et  astra  petet.' 


SURVIVORS   AND   DESCENDANTS  28 1 

Richard  (baptised  on  February  g,  161 7-1 8),  was 
buried  on  January  28,  1638-9;  and  the  third  son, 
Thomas  (baptised  on  January  23,  1619-20),  was 
buried  on  February  26,  1638-9.  Judith  survived  her 
husband,  sons,  and  sister,  dying  at  Stratford  on 
February  9,  166 1-2,  in  her  seventy-seventh  year. 

The  poet's  elder  daughter,  Mrs.  Susannah  Hall,  re- 
sided at  New  Place  till  her  death.  Her  sister  Judith 
alienated  to  her  the  Chapel  Place  tenement  before 
Mistress  ^^33>  but  that,  with  the  interest  in  the 
Susannah  Stratford  tithcs,  she  soon  disposed  of.  Her 
husband,  Dr.  John  Hall,  died  on  Novem- 
ber 25,  1635.  In  1642,  James  Cooke,  a  surgeon  in 
attendance  on  some  Royalist  troops  stationed  at 
Stratford,  visited  Mrs.  Hall  and  examined  manu- 
scripts in  her  possession,  but  they  were  apparently  of 
her  husband's,  not  of  her  father's,  composition.^  From 
July  1 1  to  13,  1643,  Queen  Henrietta  Maria,  while  jour- 
neying from  Newark  to  Oxford,  was  billeted  on  Mrs. 
Hall  at  New  Place  for  three  days,  and  was  visited 
there  by  Prince  Rupert.  Mrs.  Hall  was  buried  beside 
her  husband  in  Stratford  Churchyard  on  July  11, 
1649,  ^1"^^^  3-  rhyming  inscription,  describing  her  as 
'  witty  above  her  sex,'  was  engraved  on  her  tomb- 
stone. The  whole  inscription  ran  :  '  Heere  lyeth  ye. 
body  of  Svsanna,  wife  to  John  Hall,  Gent.  ye.  davghter 
of  William  Shakespeare,  Gent.  She  deceased  ye. 
nth  of  Jvly,  a.d.  1649,  aged  66. 

'  Witty  above  her  sexe,  but  that's  not  all, 
Wise  to  Salvation  was  good  Mistress  Hall, 

1  Cf.  Hall,  Seleci  Observations,  ed.  Cooke,  1657. 


282  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Something  of  Shakespere  \\as  in  that,  but  this 
Wholy  of  him  with  whom  she's  now  in  blisse. 
Then,  passenger,  ha'st  ne're  a  teare, 

To  weepe  with  her  that  wept  with  all? 
That  wept,  yet  set  herselfe  to  chere 

Them  up  with  comforts  cordiall. 
Her  Love  shall  live,  her  mercy  spread, 
When  thou  hast  ne're  a  teare  to  shed.' 

Mrs.  Hall's  only  child,  Elizabeth,  was  the  last 
surviving  descendant  of  the  poet.  In  April  1626  she 
„,    ,    ,       married  her  first  husband,  Thomas  Nash  of 

The  last  ' 

descen-        Stratford  {b.  1593),  who  Studied  at  Lincoln's 
^^^'  Inn,   was    a  man  of   property,   and,    dying 

childless  at  New  Place  on  April  4,  1647,  '^vas  buried 
in  Stratford  Church  next  day.  At  Billesley,  a  village 
four  miles  from  Stratford,  on  June  5,  1649,  Mrs.  Nash 
married,  as  a  second  husband,  a  widower,  John  Bernard 
or  Barnard  of  Abington,  Northamptonshire,  who  was 
knighted  by  Charles  II  in  1661.  About  the  same 
date  she  seems  to  have  abandoned  New  Place  for  her 
husband's  residence  at  Abington.  Dying  without 
issue,  she  was  buried  there  on  February  17,  1669-70. 
Her  husband  survived  her  four  years,  and  was  buried 
beside  her.^  On  her  mother's  death  in  1649  Lady 
Barnard  inherited  under  the  poet's  will  the  land  near 
Stratford,  New  Place,  the  house  at  Blackfriars,  and  (on 
the  death  of  the  poet's  sister,  Joan  Hart,  in  1646)  the 
houses  in  Henley  Street,  while  her  father,  Dr.  Hall,  left 
her  in  1635  a  house  at  Acton  with  a  meadow.  She 
sold  the  Blackfriars  house,  and  apparently  the  Strat- 
ford land,  before  1667.     By  her  will,  dated  January 

1  Baker,  N^orthamptonshire,  i.  lo;  New  Shaksp.  Soc.  Trans. 
18S0-5,    pt.    ii.  pp.    I3t-i5t. 


SURVIVORS   AND   DESCENDANTS  283 

1669-70,  and  proved  in  the  following  March,  she  left 
small  bequests  to  the  daughters  of  Thomas  Hatha- 
way, of  the  family  of  her  grandmother,  the  poet's 
wife.  The  houses  in  Henley  Street  passed  to  her 
cousin,  Thomas  Hart,  the  grandson  of  the  poet's 
sister  Joan,  and  they  remained  in  the  possession  of 
Thomas's  direct  descendants  till  1806  (the  male  line 
expired  on  the  death  of  John  Hart  in  1800).  By  her 
will  Lady  Barnard  also  ordered  New  Place  to  be  sold, 
and  it  was  purchased  on  May  18,  1675,  by  Sir  Edward 
Walker,  through  whose  daughter  Barbara,  wife  of 
Sir  John  Clopton,  it  reverted  to  the  Clopton  family. 
Sir  John  rebuilt  it  in  1702.  On  the  death  of  his  son 
Hugh  in  1752,  it  was  bought  by  the  Rev.  Francis 
Gastrell  (</.  1768),  who  demolished  the  new  building 
in  1759.^ 

Of  Shakespeare's  three  brothers,  only  one,  Gilbert, 
seems  to  have  survived  him.  Edmund,  the  youngest 
Shake  brother,  'a  player,'  was  buried  at  St. 
speare's  Saviour's  Church,  Southwark,  '  with  a  fore- 
^°^  ^^^'  noone  knell  of  the  great  bell,'  on  December 
31,  1607;  he  was  in  his  twenty-eighth  year.  Richard, 
John  Shakespeare's  third  son,  died  at  Stratford  in 
February  161 3,  aged  29.  'Gilbert  Shakespeare  ado- 
lescens,'  who  was  buried  at  Stratford  on  February  3, 
1611-12,  was  doubtless  son  of  the  poet's  next 
brother  Gilbert;  the  latter,  having  nearly  completed 
his  forty-sixth  year,  could  scarcely  be  described  as 
'  adolescens  ' ;  his  death  is  not  recorded,  but  according 
to  Oldys  he  survived  to  a  patriarchal  age. 

1  Halliwell-Phillipps,  //isi.  of  New  Place,  1864,  fol. 


284  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


XVIII 

AUTOGRAPHS,  PORTRAITS,  AND  MEMORIALS 

Much  controversy  has  arisen  over  the  spelling  of 
the  poet's  surname.  It  has  been  proved  capable  of 
c,    „•       r    four  thousand  variations.^    The  name  of  the 

Spelling  01 

the  poet's  poct's  father  is  entered  sixty-six  times  in 
surname,  ^j^^  couucil  books  of  Stratford,  and  is  spelt 
in  sixteen  ways.  The  commonest  form  is  '  Shax- 
peare.'  Five  autographs  of  the  poet  of  undisputed 
authenticity  are  extant ;  his  signature  to  the  indenture 
Autograph  relating  to  the  purchase  of  the  property  in 
signatures.  Blackfriars,  dated  March  10,  161 2- 13  (since 
1841  in  the  Guildhall  Library);  his  signature  to  the 
mortgage-deed  relating  to  the  same  purchase,  dated 
March  11,  161 2-1 3  (since  1858  in  the  British  Museum), 
and  the  three  signatures  on  the  three  sheets  of  his 
will,  dated  March  25,  161 5-16  (now  at  Somerset 
House).  In  all  the  signatures  some  of  the  letters  are 
represented  by  recognised  signs  of  abbreviation.  The 
signature  to  the  first  document  is  '  William  Shakspere,' 
though  in  all  other  portions  of  the  deeds  the  name  is 

'^\^\%<i,  Autograph  of  William  Shakespeare  .  .  .  together  with  ^,ooo 
ways  of  spelling  the  name,  Philadelphia,  1869. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,  AND   MEMORIALS      285 

spelt  '  Shakespeare.'  The  signature  to  the  second 
document  has  been  interpreted  both  as  Shakspere  and 
Shakspeare.  The  ink  of  the  first  signature  in  the 
will  has  now  faded  almost  beyond  decipherment,  but 
that  it  was  '  Shakspere '  may  be  inferred  from  the 
facsimile  made  by  Steevens  in  1776.  The  second  and 
third  signatures  to  the  will,  which  are  also  somewhat 
difficult  to  decipher,  have  been  read  both  as  Shakspere 
and  Shakspeare ;  but  a  close  examination  suggests 
that  whatever  the  second  signature  may  be,  the  third 
is  *  Shakespeare.'  Shakspere  is  the  spelling  of  the 
alleged  autograph  in  the  British  Museum  copy  of 
Florio's  '  Montaigne,'  but  the  genuineness  of  that 
signature  is  disputable.^  Shakespeare  was  the  form 
adopted  in  the  full  signature  appended  to  the  dedica- 
tory epistles  of  the  '  Venus  and  Adonis'  of  1593  and 
the  '  Lucrece '  of  1594,  volumes  which  were  produced 
under  the  poet's  supervision.  It  is  the  spelling 
adopted  on  the  title-pages  of  the  majority  of  contem- 
porary editions  of  his  works,  whether  or  not  produced 
under  his  supervision.  It  is  adopted  in  almost  all 
the  published  references  to  the  poet  during  the  seven- 
teenth century.  It  appears  in  the  grant  of  arms  in 
1596,  in  the  license  to  the  players  of  1603,  and  in  the 
text  of  all  the  legal  documents  relating  to  the  poet's 
property.  The  poet,  like  most  of  his  contemporaries, 
acknowledged  no  finality  on  the  subject.  According 
to  the  best  authority,  he  spelt  his  surname  in  two 
ways  when  signing  his  will.     There  is  consequently 

1  See  the  article  on  Florio,  John,  in  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  and  Sir  Frederick  Madden's  Observations  on  an  Autograph 
of  Shakspere,  1 838. 


285  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

no  good  ground  for  abandoning  the  form  Shakespeare 
which  is  sanctioned  by  legal  and  literary  custom. ^ 

Aubrey  reported  that  Shakespeare  was  '  a  hand- 
some well-shap't  man,'  but  no  portrait  exists  which  can 
Shake-  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^'^  absolutc  Certainty  to  have  been 
speare's  cxccutcd  during  his  lifetime,  although  one 
por  lai  a.  j^^g  recently  been  discovered  with  a  good 
claim  to  that  distinction.  Only  two  of  the  extant 
portraits  are  positively  known  to  have  been  produced 
within  a  short  period  after  his  death.  These  are  the 
bust  in  Stratford  Church  and  the  frontispiece  to  the 
folio  of  1623.  Each  is  an  inartistic  attempt  at  a 
posthumous  likeness.  There  is  considerable  dis- 
crepancy between  the  two ;  their  main  points  of  re- 
semblance are  the  baldness  on  the  top  of  the  head 
and  the  fulness  of  the  hair  about  the  ears.  The  bust 
was  by  Gerard  Johnson  or  Janssen,  who  was  a  Dutch 
The  strat-  stonemason  or  tombmaker  settled  in  South- 
ford  bust.  wark.  It  was  set  up  in  the  church  before 
1623,  and  is  a  rudely  carved  specimen  of  mortuary 
sculpture.  There  are  marks  about  the  forehead  and 
ears  which  suggest  that  the  face  was  fashioned  from 
a  death  mask,  but  the  workmanship  is  at  all  points 
clumsy.  The  round  face  and  eyes  present  a  heavy, 
unintellectual  expression.  The  bust  was  originally 
coloured,  but  in  1793  Malone  caused  it  to  be  white- 
washed. In  1 86 1  the  whitewash  was  removed,  and 
the  colours,  as  far  as  traceable,  restored.  The  eyes 
are  light  hazel,  the  hair  and  beard  auburn.     There 

1  Cf.  Ilalliwell-Phillipps  New  Lamps  or  Old,  1 880;  Malone, 
Inquiry,  1796. 


AUTOGRAPHS,    PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS      287 

have  been  numberless  reproductions,  both  engraved 
and  photographic.  It  was  first  engraved — very  im- 
perfectly—  for  Rowe's  edition  in  1709;  then  by 
Vertue  for  Pope's  edition  of  1725;  and  by  Gravelot 
for  Hanmer's  edition  in  1744.  A  good  engraving  by 
William  Ward  appeared  in  18 16.  A  phototype  and 
a  chromo-phototype,  issued  by  the  New  Shakspere 
Society,  are  the  best  reproductions  for  the  purposes 
The '  strat  °^  study.  The  pretentious  painting  known 
ford  •  por-  as  the  '  Stratford  '  portrait,  and  presented  in 
"■'''*•  1 867  by  W.  O.  Hunt,  town  clerk  of  Stratford, 

to  the  Birthplace  Museum,  where  it  is  very  promi- 
nently displayed,  was  probably  painted  from  the  bust 
late  in  the  eighteenth  century  ;  it  lacks  either  historic 
or  artistic  interest. 

The  engraved  portrait  —  nearly  a  half-length  — 
which  was  printed  on  the  title-page  of  the  folio  of  1623, 
j-j^  g  was  by  Martin  Droeshout.     On  the   oppo- 

shoufsen-  site  page  lines  by  Ben  Jonson  congratulate 
graving.  <  ^j^^  graver  '  on  having  satisfactorily  '  hit ' 
the  poet's  'face.'  Jonson's  testimony  does  no  credit 
to  his  artistic  discernment ;  the  expression  of  counte- 
nance, which  is  very  crudely  rendered,  is  neither 
distinctive  nor  lifelike.  The  face  is  long  and  the 
forehead  high ;  the  top  of  the  head  is  bald,  but  the 
hair  falls  in  abundance  over  the  ears.  There  is  a  scanty 
moustache  and  a  thin  tuft  under  the  lower  lip.  A  stiff 
and  wide  collar,  projecting  horizontally,  conceals  the 
neck.  The  coat  is  closely  buttoned  and  elaborately 
bordered,  especially  at  the  shoulders.  The  dimensions 
of  the  head  and  face  are  disproportionately  large  as 


288  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

compared  with  those  of  the  body.  In  the  unique  proof 
copy  which  belonged  to  Halliwell-Phillipps  (now  with 
his  collection  in  America)  the  tone  is  clearer  than  in 
the  ordinary  copies,  and  the  shadows  are  less  darkened 
by  cross-hatching  and  coarse  dotting.  The  engraver, 
Martin  Droeshout,  belonged  to  a  Flemish  family  of 
painters  and  engravers  long  settled  in  London,  where 
he  was  born  in  1601.  He  was  thus  fifteen  years  old 
at  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  death  in  16 16,  and  it  is 
consequently  improbable  that  he  had  any  personal 
knowledge  of  the  dramatist.  The  engraving  was 
doubtless  produced  by  Droeshout  very  shortly  before 
the  jiublication  of  the  First  Folio  in  1623,  when  he 
had  completed  his  twenty-second  year.  It  thus 
belongs  to  the  outset  of  the  engraver's  professional 
career,  in  which  he  never  achieved  extended  practice 
or  reputation.  A  copy  of  the  Droeshout  engraving, 
by  William  Marshall,  was  prefixed  to  Shakespeare's 
'Poems'  in  1640,  and  William  Faithorne  made 
another  copy  for  the  frontispiece  of  the  edition  of 
'The  Rape  of  Lucrece '  published  in  1655. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  young  Droeshout  in 
fashioning  his  engraving  worked  from  a  painting,  and 
The'Droe-  ^^^^^  ^^  ^  likelihood  that  the  original  picture 
shout  ■  from  which  the  youthful  engraver  worked  has 
painting.  lately  come  to  light.  As  recently  as  1892 
Mr.  Edgar  Flower,  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  discovered 
in  the  possession  of  Mr.  H.  C.  Clements,  a  private 
gentleman  with  artistic  tastes  residing  at  Peckham 
Rye,  a  portrait  alleged  to  represent  Shakespeare. 
The  picture,  which  was  faded  and  somewhat  worm- 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS      289 

eaten,  dated  beyond  all  doubt  from  the  early  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century.  It  was  painted  on  a  panel 
formed  of  two  planks  of  old  elm,  and  in  the  upper 
left-hand  corner  was  the  inscription  'Will'"  Shake- 
speare, 1609.'  Mr.  Clements  purchased  the  portrait 
of  an  obscure  dealer  about  1840,  and  knew  nothing 
of  its  history,  beyond  what  he  set  down  on  a  slip  of 
paper  when  he  acquired  it.  The  note  that  he  then 
wrote  and  pasted  on  the  box  in  which  he  preserved 
the  picture  ran  as  follows :  '  The  original  portrait  of 
Shakespeare,  from  which  the  now  famous  Droeshout 
engraving  was  taken  and  inserted  in  the  first  collected 
edition  of  his  works,  published  in  1623,  being  seven 
years  after  his  death.  The  picture  was  painted  nine 
[z'cre  seven]  years  before  his  death,  and  consequently 
sixteen  [irre  fourteen]  years  before  it  was  published. 
.  .  .  The  picture  was  publicly  exhibited  in  London 
seventy  years  ago,  and  many  thousands  went  to  see  it.' 
In  all  its  details  and  in  its  comparative  dimensions, 
especially  in  the  disproportion  between  the  size  of 
the  head  and  that  of  the  body,  this  picture  is 
identical  with  the  Droeshout  engraving.  Though 
coarsely  and  stiffly  drawn,  the  face  is  far  more 
skilfully  presented  than  in  the  engraving,  and  the 
expression  of  countenance  betrays  some  artistic 
sentiment  which  is  absent  from  the  print.  Connois- 
seurs, including  Sir  Edward  Poynter,  Mr.  Sidney 
Colvin,  and  Mr.  Lionel  Cust,  have  almost  unre- 
servedly pronounced  the  picture  to  be  anterior  in 
date  to  the  engraving,  and  they  have  reached  the 
conclusion  that  in  all  probability  Martin  Droeshout 


290  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

directly  based  his  work  upon  the  painting.  Influences 
of  an  early  seventeenth-century  Flemish  school  are 
plainly  discernible  in  the  picture,  and  it  is  just  possible 
that  it  is  the  production  of  an  uncle  of  the  young  en- 
graver Martin  Droeshout,  who  bore  the  same  name 
as  his  nephew,  and  was  naturalised  in  this  country  on 
January  25,  1608,  when  he  was  described  as  a  '  painter 
of  Brabant.'  Although  the  history  of  the  portrait 
rests  on  critical  conjecture  and  on  no  external  con- 
temporary evidence,  there  seems  good  ground  for  re- 
garding it  as  a  portrait  of  Shakespeare  painted  in  his 
lifetime  —  in  the  forty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  No  other 
pictorial  representation  of  the  poet  has  equally  serious 
claims  to  be  treated  as  contemporary  with  himself,  and 
it  therefore  presents  features  of  unique  interest.  On 
the  death  of  its  owner,  Mr.  Clements,  in  1895,  the 
painting  was  purchased  by  Mrs.  Charles  Flower,  and 
was  presented  to  the  Memorial  Picture  Gallery  at 
Stratford,  where  it  now  hangs.  No  attempt  at  res- 
toration has  been  made.  A  photogravure  forms  the 
frontispiece  to  the  present  volume.^ 

Of  the  same  type  as  the  Droeshout  engraving, 
although  less  closely  resembling  it  than  the  picture 
just  described,  is  the  '  Ely  House '  portrait,  (now  the 
property  of   the    Birthplace  Trustees   at  Stratford), 

1  Mr.  Lionel  Cust,  director  of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  who  has 
little  doubt  of  the  genuineness  of  the  picture,  gave  an  interesting  account 
of  it  at  a  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  on  December  12,  1895. 
Mr.  Gust's  paper  is  printed  in  the  Society's  Proceedings,  second  series, 
vol.  xvi.  p.  42.  Mr.  Salt  Brassington,  the  librarian  of  the  Shakespeare 
Memorial  Library,  has  given  a  careful  description  of  it  in  the  Illustrated 
Catalogue  of  the  Pictures  in  the  Memorial  Gallery,  1896,  pp.  78-83. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS      29 1 

which  formerly  belonged  to  Thomas  Turton,  Bishop 
of  Ely,  and  it  is  inscribed  '  m.  39  x.  1603.'^  This 
painting  is  of  high  artistic  value.  The  features  are  of 
a  far  more  attractive  and  intellectual  cast  than  in  either 
the  Droesh6ut  painting  or  engraving,  and  the  many 
differences  in  detail  raise  doubts  as  to  whether  the 
person  represented  can  have  been  intended  for 
Shakespeare.  Experts  are  of  opinion  that  the  pict- 
ure was  painted  early  in  the  seventeenth  century. 

Early  in  Charles  II's  reign  Lord  Chancellor 
Clarendon  added  a  portrait  of  Shakespeare  to  his 
great  gallery  in  his  house  in  St.  James's.  Mention 
is  made  of  it  in  a  letter  from  the  diarist  John  Evelyn 
to  his  friend  Samuel  Pepys  in  1689,  but  Clarendon's 
collection  was  dispersed  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  the  picture  has  not  been  traced.^ 

Of  the  numerous  extant  paintings  which  have 
been  described  as  portraits  of  Shakespeare,  only  the 
Later  '  Drocshout '  portrait  and  the  '  Ely  House  ' 

portraits,  portrait,  both  of  which  are  at  Stratford, 
bear  any  definable  resemblance  to  the  folio  engraving 
or  the  bust  in  the  church.^     In  spite  of  their  admitted 

1  Harper'' s  Magazine,  May  1897. 

^  Cf.  Evelyn'' s  Diary  and  Correspondence,  iii.  444. 

3  Numberless  portraits  have  been  falsely  identiiied  with  Shakespeare, 
and  it  would  be  futile  to  attempt  to  make  the  record  of  the  pretended 
portraits  complete.  Upwards  of  sixty  have  been  offered  for  sale  to  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery  since  its  foundation  in  1856,  and  not  one  of 
these  has  proved  to  possess  the  remotest  claim  to  authenticity.  The 
following  are  some  of  the  wholly  unauthentic  portraits  that  have  at- 
tracted public  attention :  Three  portraits  assigned  to  Zucchero,  who 
left  England  in  15S0,  and  cannot  have  had  any  relations  with  Shake- 
speare—  one  in  the  Art  Museum,  Boston,  US.  A.;    another,  formerly 


292  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

imperfections,  those  presentments  can  alone  be  held 
indisputably  to  have  been  honestly  designed  to  depict 
the  poet's  features.  They  must  be  treated  as  the 
standards  of  authenticity  in  judging  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  other  portraits  claiming  to  be  of  an  early  date. 
Of  other  alleged  portraits  which  are  extant,  the 
most  famous  and  interesting  is  the  '  Chandos  '  portrait, 
rj.^^  now  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Its  ped- 

' Chandos'  igrec  suggests  that  it  was  intended  to  repre- 
portrait.  ^^^^  ^j^^  poet,  but  numcrous  and  conspicuous 
divergences  from  the  authenticated  likenesses  show 
that  it  was  painted  from  fanciful  descriptions  of  him 
some  years  after  his  death.  The  face  is  bearded,  and 
rings  adorn  the  ears.  Oldys  reported  that  it  was  from 
the  brush  of  Burbage,  Shakespeare's  fellow-actor,  who 
had  some  reputation  as  a  limner,^  and  that  it  had  be- 
longed to  Joseph  Taylor,  an  actor  contemporary  with 
Shakespeare.  These  rumours  are  not  corroborated  ; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  at  one  time  the  prop- 
erty of  D'Avenant,  and  that  it  subsequently  belonged 
successively  to  the  actor  Betterton  and  to  Mrs.  Barry 
the  actress.     In  1693  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  made  a  copy 

the  property  of  Richard  Cosway,  R.A.,  and  afterwards  of  Mr.  J.  A. 
Langford  of  Birmingham  (engraved  in  mezzotint  by  H.  Green)  ;  and 
a  third  belonging  to  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  who  purchased  it  in 
1862.  At  Hampton  Court  is  a  wholly  unauthentic  portrait  of  the 
Chandos  type,  which  was  at  one  time  at  Penshurst ;  it  bears  the  legend 
S-Etatis  suffi  34'  (cf.  Law's  Ca^.  of  Hampton  Court,  p.  234).  A 
portrait  inscribed  'retatis  suae  47,  1611,'  belonging  to  Clement  Kingston 
of  Ashbourne,  Derbyshire,  was  engraved  in  mezzotint  by  G.  F.  Storm 
in  1846. 

1  In  the  picture-gallery  at  Duhvich  is  '  a  woman's  head  on  a  boord 
done  by  Mr.  Burbidge,  ye  actor '  —  a  well-authenticated  example  of  the 
actor's  art. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS      293 

as  a  gift  for  Dryden.  After  Mrs.  Barry's  death  in 
171 3  it  was  purchased  for  forty  guineas  by  Robert 
Keck,  a  barrister  of  the  Inner  Temple.  At  length 
it  reached  the  hands  of  one  John  Nichols,  whose 
daughter  married  James  Brydges,  third  duke  of 
Chandos.  In  due  time  the  Duke  became  the  owner 
of  the  picture,  and  it  subsequently  passed,  through 
Chandos's  daughter,  to  her  husband,  the  first  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  whose  son,  the  second  Duke  of  Bucking- 
ham, sold  it  with  the  rest  of  his  effects  at  Stowe  in 
1848,  when  it  was  purchased  by  the  Earl  of  Ellesmere. 
The  latter  presented  it  to  the  nation.  Edward  Capell 
many  years  before  presented  a  copy  by  Ranelagh 
Barret  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  and  other  cop- 
ies are  attributed  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  Ozias 
Humphrey  ( 1 783).  It  was  engraved  by  George  Vertue 
in  1719  for  Pope's  edition  (1725),  and  often  later,  one 
of  the  best  engravings  being  by  Vandergucht.  A 
good  lithograph  from  a  tracing  by  Sir  George  Scharf 
was  published  by  the  trustees  of  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery  in  1864.  The  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts  pur- 
chased in  1875  a  portrait  of  similar  type,  which  is 
said,  somewhat  doubtfully,  to  have  belonged  to  John 
lord  Lumley,  who  died  in  1609,  and  to  have  formed 
part  of  a  collection  of  portraits  of  the  great  men  of  his 
day  at  his  house,  Lumley  Castle,  Durham.  Its  early 
history  is  not  positively  authenticated,  and  it  may 
well  be  an  early  copy  of  the  'Chandos'  portrait.  The 
'  Lumley  '  painting  was  finely  chromo-lithographed  in 
1863  by  Vincent  Brooks. 

The  so-called  'Jansen'  or  'Janssens'  portrait,  which 


294  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

belongs  to  Lady  Guendolen  Ramsden,  daughter  of  the 
The  Duke  of  Somerset,  and  is  now  at  her  resi- 

'  Jansen '  t»    i  ■,  r  i       i     r    n      •  i 

portrait.  deuce  at  Bulstrode,  was  first  doubtfully  iden' 
tified  about  1770,  when  in  the  possession  of  Charles 
Jennens.  Janssens  did  not  come  to  England  before 
Shakespeare's  death.  It  is  a  fine  portrait,  but  is 
unlike  any  other  that  has  been  associated  with  the 
dramatist.  An  admirable  mezzotint  by  Richard 
Earlom  was  issued  in   18 ri. 

The  '  Felton  '  portrait,  a  small  head  on  a  panel,  with 
The  a  high  and  very  bald  forehead  (belonging 

portrait.  sincc  1 873  to  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts), 
was  purchased  by  S.  Felton  of  Drayton,  Shropshire, 
in  1792,  of  J.  Wilson,  the  owner  of  the  Shakespeare 
Museum  in  Pall  Mall ;  it  bears  a  late  inscription,  'Gul. 
Shakespear  1597,  R.  B.'  [i.e.  Richard  Burbage].  It 
was  engraved  by  Josiah  Boydell  for  George  Steevens 
in  1797,  and  by  James  Neagle  for  Isaac  Reed's  edition 
in  1803.  Fuseli  declared  it  to  be  the  work  of  a  Dutch 
artist,  but  the  painters  Romney  and  Lawrence  re- 
garded it  as  of  English  workmanship  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Steevens  held  that  it  was  the  original  pict- 
ure whence  both  Droeshout  and  Marshall  made  their 
engravings,  but  there  are  practically  no  points  of  re- 
semblance between  it  and  the  prints. 

The  'Soest'  or  'Zoust'  portrait  —  in  the  possession 
The  _  of  Sir  John  Lister-Kaye  of  the  Grange, 
portrait.  Wakefield — was  in  the  collection  of  Thomas 
Wright,  painter,  of  Covent  Garden  in  1725,  when 
John  Simon  engraved  it.  Soest  was  born  twenty-one 
years  after  Shakespeare's  death,  and  the  portrait  is 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE. 


From  a  plaster-cast  of  the  terra-cotta  bust  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Gar- 
rick  Club. 


AUTOGRAPHS,    PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS      295 

only  on  fanciful  grounds  identified  with  the  poet.  A 
chalk  drawing  by  Joseph  Michael  Wright,  obviously 
inspired  by  the  Soest  portrait,  is  the  property  of  Sir 
Arthur  Hodgson  of  Clopton  House,  and  is  on  loan  at 
the  Memorial  Gallery,  Stratford. 

A  well-executed  miniature  by  Hilliard,  at  one 
Miniatures,  time  in  the  possession  of  William  Somerville 
the  poet,  and  now  the  property  of  Sir  Stafford  North- 
cote,  bart.,  was  engraved  by  Agar  for  vol.  ii.  of  the 
'Variorum  Shakespeare'  of  1821,  and  in  Wivell's 
'Inquiry,'  1827.  It  has  little  claim  to  attention  as  a 
portrait  of  the  dramatist.  Another  miniature  (called 
the  '  Auriol '  portrait),  of  doubtful  authenticity,  for- 
merly belonged  to  Mr.  Lumsden  Propert,  and  a  third 
is  at  Warwick  Castle. 

A  bust,  said  to  be  of  Shakespeare,  was  discovered 
in  1845  bricked  up  in  a  wall  in  Spode  &  Copeland's 
^,  china  warehouse    in   Lincoln's  Inn    Fields. 

Ine 

Garrick  The  warchousc  had  been  erected  on  the  site 
"  ^^*'  of  the  Duke's  Theatre,  which  was  built  by 
D'Avenant  in  1660.  The  bust,  which  is  of  black 
terra-cotta,  and  bears  traces  of  Italian  workmanship,  is 
believed  to  have  adorned  the  proscenium  of  the  Duke's 
Theatre.  It  was  acquired  by  the  surgeon  William 
Clift,  from  whom  it  passed  to  Cliffs  son-in-law, 
Richard  (afterwards  Sir  Richard)  Owen  the  natural- 
ist. The  latter  sold  it  to  the  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
who  presented  it  in  185 1  to  the  Garrick  Club,  after 
having  two  copies  made  in  plaster.  One  of  these 
copies  is  now  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial  Gallery 
at  Stratford,  and  from  it  an  engraving  has  been  made 
for  reproduction  in  this  volume. 


296  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  Kesselstadt  death-mask  was  discovered  by 
Dr.  Ludwig  Becker,  librarian  at  the  ducal  palace  at 
^jj  Darmstadt,   in  a  rag-shop    at    Mayence    in 

death-  1 849.     The  features    resemble  those  of  an 

^^^^'  alleged  portrait  of  Shakespeare  (dated  1637) 

which  Dr.  Becker  purchased  in  1847.  This  picture 
had  long  been  in  the  possession  of  the  family  of  Count 
Francis  von  Kesselstadt  of  Mayence,  who  died  in 
1843.  Dr.  Becker  brought  the  mask  and  the  picture 
to  England  in  1849,  and  Richard  Owen  supported 
the  theory  that  the  mask  was  taken  from  Shake- 
speare's face  after  death,  and  was  the  foundation  of 
the  bust  in  Stratford  Church.  The  mask  was  for  a 
long  time  in  Dr.  Becker's  private  apartments  at  the 
ducal  palace,  Darmstadt.^  The  features  are  singularly 
attractive ;  but  the  chain  of  evidence  which  would 
identify  them  with  Shakespeare  is  incomplete.^ 

A  monument,  the  expenses  of  which  were  defrayed 

1  It  is  now  the  property  of  Frau  Oberst  Becker,  the  discoverer's 
daughter-in-law.     Darmstadt,  Heidelbergerstrasse  iii. 

2  Some  account  of  Shakespeare's  portraits  will  be  found  in  the  fol- 
lowing works  :  James  Boaden,  Inquiry  into  various  Pictures  and  Prints 
of  Shakespeare,  1824;  Abraham  Wivell,  Inquiry  into  Shakespeare^ s 
Portraits,  1827,  with  engravings  by  B.  and  W.  HoU;  George  Scharf, 
Principal  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  1864;  J.  Hain  Friswell,  Life-Por- 
traits of  Shakespeare,  1864  ;  William  Page,  Study  of  Shakespeare'' s 
J'ortraits,  1876;  Ingleby,  ^/rt«  ««(/ /Aw/t,  1877,  pp.  84  seq. ;  J.Parker 
Norris,  Portraits  of  Shakespeare,  Philadelphia,  1885,  with  numerous 
plates;  Illustrated  Cat.  of  Portraits  in  Shakespeare'' s  Memorial  at 
Stratford,  1896.  In  1885  Mr.  Walter  Rogers  Furness  issued,  at 
Philadelphia,  a  volume  of  composite  portraits,  combining  the  Droeshout 
engraving  and  the  Stratford  bust  with  the  Chandos,  Jansen,  Felton,  and 
Stratford  portraits. 


AUTOGRAPHS,   PORTRAITS,   AND   MEMORIALS      297 

by  public  subscription,  was  set  up  in  the  Poets' 
Memorial  Comcr  in  Wcstminstcr  Abbey  in  1 741.  Pope 
in  sculpt-  and  the  Earl  of  Burlington  were  among 
the  promoters.  The  design  was  by  William 
Kent,  and  the  statue  of  Shakespeare  was  executed 
by  Peter  Scheemakers.^  Another  statue  was  executed 
by  Roubiliac  for  Garrick,  who  bequeathed  it  to  the 
British  Museum  in  1779.  A  third  statue,  freely 
adapted  from  the  works  of  Scheemakers  and  Roubi- 
liac, was  executed  for  Baron  Albert  Grant  and  was 
set  up  by  him  as  a  gift  to  the  metropolis  in  Leicester 
Square,  London,  in  1879.  A  fourth  statue  (by  Mr. 
J.  Q.  A.  Ward)  was  placed  in  1882  in  the  Central 
Park,  New  York.  A  fifth  in  bronze,  by  M.  Paul  Four- 
nier,  which  was  erected  in  Paris  in  1888  at  the  expense 
of  an  English  resident,  Mr.  W.  Knighton,  stands  at  the 
point  where  the  Avenue  de  Messine  meets  the  Boule- 
vard Haussmann.  A  sixth  memorial  in  sculpture,  by 
Lord  Ronald  Gower,  the  most  elaborate  and  ambitious 
of  all,  stands  in  the  garden  of  the  Shakespeare  Memo- 
rial buildings,  and  was  unveiled  in  1888  ;  Shakespeare 
is  seated  on  a  high  pedestal ;  below,  at  each  side  of 
the  pedestal,  stand  figures  of  four  of  Shakespeare's 
principal  characters :  Lady  Macbeth,  Hamlet,  Prince 
Hal,  and  Sir  John  Falstaff. 

At  Stratford,  the  Birthplace,  which  was  acquired 
by  the  public  in  1846  and  converted  into  a  museum,  is, 
with  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage  (which  was  acquired 
by  the  Birthplace  Trustees  in  1892),  a  place  of  pil- 
grimage for  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  globe.    The 

^  Cf.  Gentle7nan^s  Alagazine,  1741,  p.  105. 


298  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

27,038  persons  who  visited  it  in  1896  and  the  26,510 
persons  who  visited  it  in  1897  represented  over  forty 
nationalities.  The  site  of  the  demolished  New  Place, 
with  the  gardens,  was  also  purchased  by  public  sub- 
scription in  1 86 1,  and  now  forms  a  public  garden. 
Of  a  new  memorial  building  on  the  river-bank  at 
Stratford,  consisting  of  a  theatre,  picture-gallery,  and 
library,  the  foundation-stone  was  laid  on  April  23, 
1877.  The  theatre  was  opened  exactly  two  years 
later,  when  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing '  was  per- 
formed, with  Helen  Faucit  (Lady  Martin)  as  Beatrice 
and  Barry  Sullivan  as  Benedick.  Performances  of 
Shakespeare's  plays  have  since  been  given  annually 
during  April.  The  library  and  picture-gallery  were 
opened  in  188 1.^  A  memorial  Shakespeare  library 
was  opened  at  Birmingham  on  April  23,  1868,  to 
commemorate  the  tercentenary  of  1864,  and,  although 
destroyed  by  fire  in  1879,  was  restored  in  1882;  it 
now  possesses  nearly  ten  thousand  volumes  relating 
to  Shakespeare. 

1  A  History  of  the  Shakespeare  Memorial,  Stratford-on-Avon,  1882; 
Illustrated  Catalogue  of  Pictures  in  the  Shakespeare  Memorial,  1896. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  299 


XIX 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Only  two  of  Shakespeare's  works  —  his  narrative 
poems  'Venus  and  Adonis'  and  'Lucrece' — were 
published  with  his  sanction  and  co-operation.  These 
poems  were  the  first  specimens  of  his  work  to  appear 
in  print,  and  they  passed  in  his  Hfetime  through  a 
greater  number  of  editions  than  any  of  his  plays. 
At  the  time  of  his  death  in  1616  there  had  been 
printed  in  quarto  seven  editions  of  his  '  Venus  and 
Quartos  of  Adonis '  (i593,  1594,  1596,  1599,  1600, 
the  poems    ^^^   ^^^    -^    i6o2),    and    five    editions    of 

in  the  poets  ' 

lifetime.  his  '  Lucrcce  '  (1594,  1598,  1600,  1607,  16 16). 
There  was  only  one  lifetime  edition  of  the  '  Sonnets,' 
Thorpe's  surreptitious  venture  of  1609;^  but  three 
editions  were  issued  of  the  piratical  '  Passionate 
Pilgrim,'  which  was  fraudulently  assigned  to  Shake- 
speare by  the  publisher  William  Jaggard,  although 
it  only  contained  a  few  occasional  poems  by  him 
(1599,  1600  no  copy  known,  and  1612). 

Of    posthumous    editions    in    quarto   of    the    two 

1  This  was  facsimiled  in  1862,  and  again  by  Mr.  Griggs  in  1880. 


300  Wir.LIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

narrative  poems  in  the  seventeenth  century,  there 
Posthu-  were  two  of  '  Lucrece  '  —  viz.  in  1624  ('the 
"osoHhr'  sixth  edition')  and  in  1655  (with  John 
poems.  Quarles's  'Banishment  of  Tarquin ') — and 
there  were  as  many  as  six  editions  of  'Venus '  (16 17, 
1620,  1627,  two  in  1630  and  1636),  making  thirteen 
editions  in  all  in  forty-three  years.  No  later  editions 
of  these  two  poems  were  issued  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  They  were  next  reprinted  together  with 
'The  Passionate  Pilgrim'  in  1707,  and  thenceforth 
they  usually  figured,  with  the  addition  of  the  '  Sonnets,' 
in  collected  editions  of  Shakespeare's  works. 

A  so-called  first  collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
'  Poems  '  in  1640  (London,  by  T.  Cotes  for  I.  Benson) 
r^^^  was    mainly    a    reissue    of    the    '  Sonnets,' 

'Poems'  but  it  omitted  six  (Nos.  xviii.,  xix.,  xliii., 
^  "^°'  Ivi.,  Ixxv.,  and  Ixxvi.)  and  it  included  the 
twenty  poems  of  '  The  Passionate  Pilgrim,  with 
some  other  pieces  by  other  authors.  Marshall's  copy 
of  the  Droeshout  engraving  of  1623  formed  the 
frontispiece.  There  were  prefatory  poems  by  Leonard 
Digges  and  John  Warren,  as  well  as  an  address  '  to  the 
reader'  signed  with  the  initials  of  the  publisher.  There 
Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets  '  were  described  as  '  serene, 
clear,  and  elegantly  plain  ;  such  gentle  strains  as  shall 
re-create  and  not  perplex  your  brain.  No  intricate 
or  cloudy  stuff  to  puzzle  intellect.  Such  as  will  raise 
your  admiration  to  his  praise.'  A  chief  point  of  in- 
terest in  the  volume  of  'Poems'  of  1640  is  the  fact 
that  the  '  Sonnets '  were  printed  then  in  a  different 
order  to  that  which  was  followed  in  the  volume  of 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  3OI 

1609.  Thus  the  poem  numbered  Ixvii.  in  the  original 
edition  opens  the  reissue,  and  what  has  been  regarded 
as  the  crucial  poem  beginning 

Two  loves  I  have  of  comfort  and  despair, 

which  was  in  1609  numbered  cxliv.,  takes  the  thirty- 
second  place  in  1640.  In  most  cases  a  more  or  less 
fanciful  general  title  was  placed  in  the  second  edition 
at  the  head  of  each  sonnet,  but  in  a  few  instances  a 
single  title  serves  for  short  sequences  of  two  or  three 
sonnets  which  are  printed  as  independent  poems  con- 
tinuously without  spacing.  The  poems  drawn  from 
'  The  Passionate  Pilgrim '  are  intermingled  with  the 
'  Sonnets,'  together  with  extracts  from  Thomas  Hey- 
wood's  '  General  History  of  Women,'  although  no 
hint  is  given  that  they  are  not  Shakespeare's  work. 
The  edition  concludes  with  three  epitaphs  on  Shake- 
speare and  a  short  section  entitled  '  An  addition  of 
some  excellent  poems  to  those  precedent  by  other 
Gentlemen.'  The  volume  is  of  great  rarity.  An 
exact  reprint  was  published  in   1885. 

Of  Shakespeare's  plays  there  were  in  print  in 
1616  only  sixteen  (all  in  quarto),  or  eighteen  if  we 
Quartos  of  include  the  '  Contention,'  the  first  draft  of 
the  plays      <2  Henry  \T  '   (1594  and   1600),  and  'The 

in  the  i      >     1         n 

poet's  life-  True  1  ragedy,  the  first  draft  of  '  3  Henry 
time.  Yj  '  (1595  and  1600).     These  sixteen  quartos 

were  publishers'  ventures,  and  were  undertaken  with- 
out the  co-operation  of  the  author. 

Two  of  the  plays,  published  thus,  reached  five 
editions  before  1616,  viz.  'Richard  HI'  (1597,  1598, 


302  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

1602,   1605,   1612)  and    'I    Henry  IV'  (1598,   1599, 

1604,  1608,   161 5). 

Three  reached  four  editions,  viz.  'Richard  II' 
(1597,  1598,  1608  supplying  the  deposition  scene  for 
the  first  time,  1615),  '  Hamlet '  (1603  imperfect,  1604, 

1605,  161 1),  and  'Romeo  and  Juliet'  (1597  imperfect, 
1599,  two  in  1609). 

Two  reached  three  editions,  viz.  '  Henry  V  '  (1600 
imperfect,  1602,  and  1608)  and  'Pericles'  (two  in 
1609,  161 1 ). 

Four"  reached  two  editions,  viz.  '  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream  '  (both  in  1600),  '  Merchant  of  Venice,' 
(both  in  1600),  'Lear'  (both  in  1608),  and  '  Troilus 
and  Cressida'  (both  in  1609). 

Five  achieved  only  one  edition,  viz.  '  Love's 
Labour's  Lost'  (1598),  '2  Henry  IV'  (1600),  'Much 
Ado'  (1600),  'Titus'  (1600),  'Merry  Wives'  (1602 
imperfect). 

Three  years  after  Shakespeare's  death — in  1619 
—  there  appeared  a  second  edition  of  '  Merry  Wives' 
Posthu-  (again  imperfect)  and  a  fourth  of  '  Pericles.' 
Tartos  of  *  Othello  '  was  first  printed  posthumously  in 
the  plays.  i622  (4to),  and  in  the  same  year  sixth  edi- 
tions of  '  Richard  III '  and  '  i  Henry  IV'  appeared.^ 
The   largest    collections    of    the    original    quartos  — ■ 

^  Lithographed  facsimiles  of  most  of  these  volumes,  with  some  of 
the  quarto  editions  of  the  poems  (forty-eight  volumes  in  all),  were 
prepared  by  Mr.  E.  W.  Ashbee,  and  issued  to  subscribers  by  Halliwell- 
Phillipps  between  1862  and  1871.  A  cheaper  set  of  quarto  facsimiles, 
undertaken  by  Mr.  W.  Griggs,  and  issued  under  the  supervision  of  Dr. 
F.  J.  P^urnivall,  appeared  in  forty-three  volumes  between  1880  and 
1889. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  303 

each  of  which  only  survives  in  four,  five,  or  six 
copies  —  are  in  the  libraries  of  the  Duke  of  Devon- 
shire, the  British  Museum,  and  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge, and  in  the  Bodleian  Library. ^  All  the  quartos 
were  issued  in  Shakespeare's  day  at  sixpence  each. 

In  1623  the  first  attempt  was  made  to  give  the 
world  a  complete  edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays. 
The  First  Two  of  the  dramatist's  intimate  friends  and 
Folio.  fellow-actors,    John     Heming    and     Henry 

Condell,  were  nominally  responsible  for  the  venture, 
but  it  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  a  small  syndi- 
cate of  printers  and  publishers,  who  undertook  all 
pecuniary  responsibility.  Chief  of  the  syndicate  was 
William  Jaggard,  printer  since  161 1  to  the  City  of 
London,  who  was  established  in  business  in  Fleet 
Street  at  the  east  end  of  St.  Dunstan'-s  Church.  As 
the  piratical  pubhsher  of  '  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  '  he 
had  long  known  the  commercial  value  of  Shake- 
speare's work.  In  161 3  he  had  extended  his  business 
by  purchasing  the  stock  and  rights  of  a  rival  pirate, 
The  ub  James  Roberts,  who  had  printed  the  quarto 
lishing  editions  of  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice '  and 
syndicate.  «  Midsummer  Night's  Dream'  in  1600  and 
the  complete  quarto  of  '  Hamlet '  in  1604.  Roberts 
had  enjoyed  for  nearly  twenty  years  the  right  to  print 
'the  players'  bills,'  or  programmes,  and  he  made  over 

1  Perfect  copies  range  in  price,  according  to  their  rarity,  from 
200/.  to  300/.  In  1864,  at  the  sale  of  George  Daniel's  library,  quarto 
copies  of '  Love's  Labour's  Lost'  and  of 'Merry  Wives'  (first  edition) 
each  fetched  346/.  105.  On  May  14,  1897,  a  copy  of  the  quarto  of 
'The  Merchant  of  Venice'  (printed  by  James  Roberts  in  1600)  was 
sold  at  Sotheby's  for  315/. 


304  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

that  privilege  to  Jaggard  with  his  other  literary  prop- 
erty. It  was  to  the  close  personal  relations  with  the 
playhouse  managers  into  which  the  acquisition  of  the 
right  of  printing  '  the  players'  bills  '  brought  Jaggard 
after  1613  that  the  inception  of  the  scheme  of  the 
'  First  Folio  '  may  safely  be  attributed.  Jaggard  asso- 
ciated his  son  Isaac  with  the  enterprise.  They  alone 
of  the  members  of  the  syndicate  were  printers.  Their 
three  partners  were  publishers  or  booksellers  only. 
Two  of  these,  William  Aspley  and  John  Smethwick, 
had  already  speculated  in  plays  of  Shakespeare.  Asp- 
ley  had  published  with  another  in  1600  the  'Second 
Part  of  Henry  IV '  and  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,' 
and  in  1609  half  of  Thorpe's  impression  of  Shake- 
speare's '  Sonnets.'  Smethwick,  whose  shop  was  in 
St.  Dunstan's  •  Churchyard,  Fleet  Street,  near  Jag- 
gard's,  had  published  in  1611  two  late  editions  of 
'Romeo  and  Juliet'  and  one  of  'Hamlet'  Edward 
Blount,  the  fifth  partner,  was  an  interesting  figure  in 
the  trade,  and,  unlike  his  companions,  had  a  true 
taste  in  literature.  He  had  been  a  friend  and  ad- 
mirer of  Christopher  Marlowe,  and  had  actively  en- 
gaged in  the  posthumous  publication  of  two  of 
Marlowe's  poems.  He  had  published  that  curious 
collection  of  mystical  verse  entitled  'Love's  Martyr,' 
one  poem  in  which,  '  a  poetical  essay  of  the  Phoenix 
and  the  Turtle,'  was  signed  'William  Shakespeare.'^ 
The  First  Folio  was  doubtless  printed  in  Jaggard's 
printing  office  near  St.  Dunstan's  Church.  Upon 
Blount  probably  fell  the  chief  labour  of  seeing  the 

1  See  p.  183. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  305 

work  through  the  press.  It  was  in  progress  through- 
out 1623,  and  had  so  far  advanced  by  November  8, 
1623,  that  on  that  day  Edward  Blount  and  Isaac 
(son  of  William)  Jaggard  obtained  formal  license 
from  the  Stationers'  Company  to  j^ublish  sixteen 
of  the  twenty  hitherto  unprinted  plays  that  it  was 
intended  to  include.  The  pieces,  whose  approaching 
publication  for  the  first  time  was  thus  announced, 
were  of  supreme  literary  interest.  The  titles  ran : 
'The  Tempest,'  'The  Two  Gentlemen,'  'Measure 
for  Measure,'  '  Comedy  of  Errors,'  '  As  You  Like  It,' 
'All's  Well,'  'Twelfth  Night,'  'Winter's  Tale,'  '3 
Henry  VI,'  'Henry  VIII,'' Coriolanus,'  'Timon,'  'Julius 
CiEsar,'  '  Macbeth,'  '  Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  and'  Cym- 
beline.'  Four  other  hitherto  unprinted  dramas  for 
which  no  license  was  sought  figured  in  the  volume, 
viz.  '  King  John,'  '  i  and  2  Henry  VI,'  and  '  The  Tam- 
ing of  The  Shrew  ' ;  but  each  of  these  plays  was  based 
by  Shakespeare  on  a  play  of  like  title  which  had  been 
published  at  an  earlier  date,  and  the  absence  of  a  license 
was  doubtless  due  to  an  ignorant  misconception  on  the 
part  either  of  the  Stationers'  Company's  officers  or  of 
the  editors  of  the  volume  as  to  the  true  relations  subsist- 
ing between  the  old  pieces  and  the  new.  The  only  play 
by  Shakespeare  that  had  been  previously  published 
and  was  not  included  in  the  First  Folio  was  '  Pericles.' 
Thirty-six  pieces  in  all  were  thus  brought  together. 
The  volume  consisted  of  nearly  one  thousand  double- 
column  pages  and  was  sold  at  a  pound  a  copy.  Steevens 
estimated  that  the  edition  numbered  250  copies.  The 
book  was  described  on  the  title-page  as  published  by 

X 


306  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Edward  Blount  and  Isaac  Jaggard,  and  in  the  colophon 
as  printed  at  the  charges  of  'W.  Jaggard,  I.  Smithweeke, 
and  W.  Aspley,'  as  well  as  of  Blount.^  On  the  title- 
page  was  engraved  the  Droeshout  portrait.  Com- 
mendatory verses  were  supplied  by  Ben  Jonson,  Hugh 
The  ref-  Holland,  Leonard  Digges,  and  I.  M.,  per- 
atory  haps   Jaspcr    Maine.     The   dedication   was 

"'''"^'"-  addressed  to  the  brothers  William  Herbert, 
earl  of  Pembroke,  the  lord  chamberlain,  and  Philip 
Herbert,  earl  of  Montgomery,  and  was  signed  by 
Shakespeare's  friends  and  fellow-actors,  Heming  and 
Condell.  The  same  signatures  were  appended  to  a 
succeeding  address  'to  the  great  variety  of  readers.' 
In  both  addresses  the  two  actors  made  pretension 
to  a  larger  responsibility  for  the  enterprise  than  they 
really  incurred,  but  their  motives  in  identifying  them- 
selves with  the  venture  were  doubtless  irreproachable. 
They  disclaimed  (they  wrote)  '  ambition  either  of  selfe- 
profit  or  fame  in  undertaking  the  design,'  being  solely 
moved  by  anxiety  to  '  keepe  the  memory  of  so  worthy 
a  friend  and  fellow  alive  as  was  our  Shakespeare.' 
'  It  had  bene  a  thing  we  confesse  worthie  to  haue  bene 
wished,'  they  inform  the  reader,  '  that  the  author  him- 
selfe  had  lined  to  haue  set  forth  and  ouerseen  his 
owne  writings.  ..."  A  list  of  contents  follows  the 
address  to  the  readers. 

The  title-page  states  that  all  the  plays  were  printed 
'  according  to  the  true  originall  copies.'  The  dedi- 
cators wrote  to  the  same  effect.  '  As  where  (before) 
we  were  abus'd  with  diuerse  stolne  and  surreptitious 

1  Cf.  Bibliographica,  i.  4S9  seq. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  307 

copies,  maimed  and  deformed  by  the  frauds  and 
stealthes  of  incurious  impostors  that  expos'd  them ; 
even  those  are  now  offer'd  to  your  view  cur'd  and 
perfect  in  their  limbes,  and  all  the  rest  absolute  in 
their  numbers  as  he  conceived  them.'  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  whole  volume  was  printed  from  the 
acting  versions  in  the  possession  of  the  manager  of 
the  company  with  which  Shakespeare  had  been  asso- 
ciated. But  it  is  doubtful  if  any  play  were  printed 
exactly  as  it  came  from  his  pen.  The  First  Folio 
text  is  often  markedly  inferior  to  that  of  the  six- 
The  value  tccu  prc-existcnt  quartos,  which,  although 
of  the  text,  surrcptitiously  and  imperfectly  printed,  fol- 
lowed playhouse  copies  of  far  earlier  date.  From 
the  text  of  the  quartos  the  text  of  the  First  Folio  differs 
invariably,  although  in  varying  degrees.  The  quarto 
texts  of  '  Love's  Labour's  Lost,'  '  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,'  and  'Richard  II,'  for  example,  differ  very 
largely  and  always  for  the  better  from  the  folio  texts. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  folio  repairs  the  glaring  de- 
fects of  the  quarto  versions  of  *  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor'  and  of  '  Henry  V.'  In  the  case  of  twenty 
of  the  plays  in  the  First  Folio  no  quartos  exist  for 
comparison,  and  of  these  twenty  plays,  '  Coriolanus,' 
'  All's  Well,'  a.nd  '  Macbeth  '  present  a  text  abounding 
in  corrupt  passages. 

The  plays  are  arranged  under  three  headings  — 
T,,       ,       'Comedies,'  'Histories,'  and  'Tragedies'  — 

The  order  '  '  ^ 

of  the  and  each  division  is  separately  paged.     The 

^^^^'  arrangement  of  the  plays  in  each  division 

follows   no   principle.     The   comedy  section   begins 


30S  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

with  the  'Tempest'  and  ends  with  the  'Winter's 
Tale.'  The  histories  more  justifiably  begin  with 
•'King  John'  and  end  with  'Henry  VIII.'  The 
tragedies  begin  with  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  and  end 
with  'Cymbclinc'  This  order  has  been  usually 
followed  in  subsequent  collected  editions. 

As  a  specimen  of  typography  the  First  Folio  is  not 
to  be  commended.  There  are  a  great  many  con- 
Thetypog-  temporary  folios  of  larger  bulk  far  more 
raphy.  neatly  and  correctly  printed.  It  looks  as 
though  Jaggard's  printing  office  were  undermanned. 
The  misprints  are  numerous  and  are  especially 
conspicuous  in  the  pagination.  The  sheets  seem  to 
have  been  worked  off  very  slowly,  and  corrections 
were  made  while  the  press  was  working,  so  that 
the  copies  struck  off  later  differ  occasionally  from 
the  earlier  copies.  One  mark  of  carelessness  on  the 
part  of  the  compositor  or  corrector  of  the  press,  which 
is  common  to  all  copies,  is  that  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,' 
though  in  the  body  of  the  book  it  opens  the  section 
of  tragedies,  is  not  mentioned  at  all  in  the  list  of 
contents,  and  the  play  is  unpaged  except  on  its  second 
and  third  pages,  which  bear  the  numbers  79  and  80. 

Three  copies  are  known  which  are  distinguished 
by  more  interesting  irregularities,  in  each  case  unique. 
Unique  The  copy  in  the  Lenox  Library  in  New  York 
copies.  includes  a  cancel  duplicate  of  a  leaf  of  '  As 
You  Like  It '  (sheet  R  of  the  comedies),  and  the  title- 
page  bears  the  date  1622  instead  of  1623  ;  but  it  is 
suspected  that  the  figures  were  tampered  with  outside 
the  printing  ofifice.^    Samuel  Butler,  successively  head 

^  This  copy  was  described  in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare  (jf  1821 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  309 

master  of  Shrewsbury  and  Bishop  of  Lichfield  and 
Coventry,  possessed  a  copy  of  the  First  Folio  in  which 
a  proof  leaf  of  '  Hamlet '  was  bound  up  with  the 
corrected  leaf.^ 

The  most  interesting  irregularity  yet  noticed  ap- 
pears in  one  of  the  two  copies  of  the  book  belonging 
to  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts.  This  copy  is  known 
as  the  Sheldon  Folio,  having  formed  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  part  of  the  library  of  Ralph  Sheldon 
of  Weston  Manor  in  the  parish  of  Long  Compton, 
Warwickshire.^  In  the  Sheldon  Folio  the  opening 
The  P3-g6  of  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  of  which  the 

Sheldon  rccto  or  front  is  occupied  by  the  prologue 
'^°^^'  and  the  verso  or  back  by  the  opening  lines 

of  the  text  of  the  play,  is  .followed  by  a  superfluous 
leaf.  On  the  recto  or  front  of  the  unnecessary  leaf  ^ 
are  printed  the  concluding  lines  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet ' 
in  place  of  the  prologue  to  'Troilus  and  Cressida.' 
At  the  back  or  verso  are  the  opening  lines  of  '  Troi- 
lus and  Cressida '  repeated  from  the  preceding  page. 

(xxi.  449)  as  in  the  possession  of  Messrs.  J.  and  A.  Arch,  booksellers,  of 
Cornhill.     It  was  subsequently  sold  at  Sotheby's  in  1855  ^^"^  163/.  165. 

1  I  cannot  trace  the  present  whereabouts  of  this  copy,  but  it  is 
described  in  the  Variorum  Shakespeare  of  1821,  xxi.  449-50. 

2  The  copy  seems  to  have  been  purchased  by  a  member  of  the 
Sheldon  family  in  1628,  five  years  after  publication.  There  is  a  note 
in  a  contemporary  hand  which  says  it  was  bought  for  3/.  155.,  a 
somewhat  extravagant  price.  The  entry  further  says  that  it  cost  three 
score  pounds  of  silver,  words  that  I  cannot  explain.  The  Sheldon 
family  arms  are  on  the  sides  of  the  volume,  and  there  are  many 
manuscript  notes  in  the  margin,  interpreting  difficult  words,  correcting 
misprints,  or  suggesting  new  readings. 

^  It  has  been  mutilated  by  a  former  owner,  and  the  signature  of  the 
leaf  is  missing,  but  it  was  presumably  G  g  3. 


310  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  presence  of  a  different  ornamental  headpiece  on 
each  page  proves  that  the  two  are  not  taken  from  the 
same  setting  of  the  type.  At  a  later  page  in  the  Shel- 
don copy  the  concluding  lines  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet' 
are  duly  reprinted  at  the  close  of  the  play,  and  on  the 
verso  or  back  of  the  leaf,  which  supplies  them  in  their 
right  place,  is  the  opening  passage,  as  in  other  copies, 
of  '  Timon  of  Athens.'  These  curious  confusions 
attest  that  while  the  work  was  in  course  of  composi- 
tion the  printers  or  editors  of  the  volume  at  one  time 
intended  to  place  'Troilus  and  Cressida,'  with  the 
prologue  omitted,  after  '  Romeo  and  Juliet.'  The  last 
page  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  is  in  all  copies  numbered 
79,  an  obvious  misprint  for  yj ;  the  first  leaf  of 
'  Troilus '  is  paged  78  ;  the  second  and  third  pages  of 
'  Troilus  '  are  numbered  79  and  80.  It  was  doubtless 
suddenly  determined  while  the  volume  was  in  the 
press  to  transfer  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  to  the  head  of 
the  tragedies  from  a  place  near  the  end,  but  the  num- 
bers on  the  opening  pages  which  indicated  its  first 
position  were  clumsily  retained,  and  to  avoid  the  ex- 
tensive typographical  corrections  that  were  required 
by  the  play's  change  of  position,  its  remaining  pages 
were  allowed  to  go  forth  unnumbered.^ 

It  is  difficult  to  estimate  how  many  copies  survive 
of  the  First  Folio,  which  is  intrinsically  and  extrinsi- 
cally  the  most  valuable  volume  in  the  whole  range 

^  Correspondents  inform  me  that  two  copies  of  the  First  Folio,  one 
formerly  belonging  to  Leonard  Hartley  and  the  other  to  Bishop  Virtue 
of  Portsmouth,  showed  a  somewhat  similar  irregularity.  Both  copies 
were  bought  by  American  booksellers,  and  I  have  not  been  able  to 
trace  them. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  3 1 1 

of  English  literature.  It  seems  that  about  140  copies 
Estimated  have  been  traced  within  the  past  century. 
eKtTm'°^  Of  these  fewer  than  twenty  are  in  a  per- 
copies.  feet  state,  that  is,  with  the  portrait  printed 
{not  inlaid)  ojt  the  title-page,  and  the  flyleaf  facing 
it,  with  all  the  pages  succeeding  it,  intact  and 
uninjured.  (The  flyleaf  contains  Ben  Jonson's 
verses,  attesting  the  truthfulness  of  the  portrait.) 
Excellent  copies  in  this  enviable  state  are  in  the 
Grenville  Library  at  the  British  Museum,  and  in 
the  libraries  of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  the  Earl  of 
Crawford,  the  Baroness  Burdett-Coutts,  and  Mr.  A.  H. 
Huth.  Of  these  probably  the  finest  and  cleanest  is 
the  '  Daniel '  copy  belonging  to  the  Baroness  Burdett- 
Coutts.  It  measures  13  inches  by  8^,  and  was  pur- 
chased by  its  present  owner  for  716/.  2s.  at  the  sale 
of  George  Daniel's  library  in  1864.  Some  twenty 
more  copies  are  defective  in  the  preliminary  pages, 
but  are  unimpaired  in  other  respects.  There  remain 
about  a  hundred  copies  which  have  sustained  serious 
damage  at  various  points. 

A  reprint  of  the  First  Folio  unwarrantably  pur- 
porting to  be  exact  was  published  in  1807-8.1     The 
best  reprint  was  issued  in  three  parts  by 
the  First       Lionel  Booth  in  1861,  1863,  and  1864.     The 
^°''°'  valuable     photo-zincographic     reproduction 

undertaken  by  Sir  Henry  James,  under  the  direction 
of  Howard  Staunton,  was  issued  in  sixteen  folio  parts 
between  February  1864  and  October  1865.    A  reduced 

1  Cf.  N'otes  and  Queries,  1st  scr.,  vii.  47. 


312  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

photographic  facsimile,  too  small  to  be  legible,  appeared 
in  1876,  with  a  preface  by  Halliwell-Phillipps. 

The  Second  Folio  edition  was  printed  in  1632  by- 
Thomas  Cotes  for  Robert  Allot  and  William  Aspley, 
each  of  whose  names  figures  as  publisher  on  different 
j.^^  copies.     To  Allot  Blount  had  transferred,  on 

Second  November  16,  1630,  his  rights  in  the  sixteen 
plays  which  were  first  licensed  for  publica- 
tion in  1623.1  The  Second  Folio  was  reprinted  from 
the  First ;  a  few  corrections  were  made  in  the 
text,  but  most  of  the  changes  were  arbitrary  and 
needless.  Charles  I's  copy  is  at  Windsor,  and 
Charles  IPs  at  the  British  Museum.  The  'Perkins 
Folio,'  now  in  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  possession, 
in  which  John  Payne  Collier  introduced  forged  emen- 
dations, was  a  copy  of  that  of  1632.^  The  Third 
Folio  —  for  the  most  part  a  faithful  reprint  of  the 
The  Third  Sccond  —  was  first  published  in  1663  by  Peter 
FoUo  Chetwynde,  who  reissued  it  next  year  with 

the  addition  of  seven  plays,  six  of  which  have  no 

1  Arber,  Stationers^  Registers,  iii.  242-3. 

2  On  January  31,  1852,  Collier  announced  in  the  Athemrum,  that 
this  copy,  which  had  been  purchased  by  him  for  thirty  shillings,  and 
bore  on  the  outer  cover  the  words  '  Tko.  Perkins  his  Booked  was  anno- 
tated throughout  by  a  former  owner  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Shortly  afterwards  Collier  published  all  the  '  essential '  manu- 
script readings  in  a  volume  entitled  Notes  and  Emendations  to  the  Plays 
of  Shakespeare.  Next  year  he  presented  the  folio  to  the  Duke  of 
Devonshire.  A  warm  controversy  as  to  the  date  and  genuineness  of 
the  corrections  followed,  but  in  1859  all  doubt  as  to  their  origin  was  set 
at  rest  by  Mr.  N.  E.  S.  A.  Hamilton  of  the  manuscript  department  of 
the  British  Museum,  who  in  letters  to  the  Times  of  July  2  and  16  pro- 
nounced all  the  manuscript  notes  to  be  recent  fabrications  in  a  simu- 
lated seventeenth-century  hand. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  313 

claim  to  admission  among  Shakespeare's  works. 
'  Unto  this  impression,'  runs  the  title-page  of  1664, 
'  is  added  seven  Playes  never  before  printed  in  folio, 
viz.  :  Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre.  The  London  Prodi- 
gall.  The  History  of  Thomas  Ld.  Cromwell.  Sir 
John  Oldcastle,  Lord  Cobham.  The  Puritan  Widow. 
A  Yorkshire  Tragedy.  The  Tragedy  of  Locrine.' 
The  six  spurious  pieces  which  open  the  volume  were 
attributed  by  unprincipled  publishers  to  Shakespeare 
in  his  lifetime.  P"ewer  copies  of  the  Third  Folio  are 
reputed  to  be  extant  than  of  the  Second  or  Fourth 
owing  to  the  destruction  of  many  unsold  impressions 
TheFourth  in  the  Fire  of  London  in  1666.  The  Fourth 
Folio.  Folio,  printed  in  1685  'for  H.  Herringman, 

E.  Brewster,  R.  Chiswell,  and  R.  Bentley,'  reprints  the 
folio  of  1664  without  change  except  in  the  way  of 
modernising  the  spelling ;  it  repeats  the  spurious 
pieces. 

Since  1685  some  two  hundred  independent 
editions  of  the  collected  works  have  been  published 
Eigh-  in    Great    Britain    and    Ireland,    and    many 

century  thousand  cditious  of  separate  plays.  The 
editors.  eighteenth-ccntury  editors  of  the  collected 
works  endeavoured  with  varying  degrees  of  success 
to  purge  the  text  of  the  numerous  incoherences 
of  the  folios,  and  to  restore,  where  good  taste  or 
good  sense  required  it,  the  lost  text  of  the  contem- 
porary quartos.  It  is  largely  owing  to  a  due  co-ordi- 
nation of  the  results  of  the  efforts  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  editors  by  their  successors  in  the  present 
century  that  Shakespeare's  work  has  become  intelli- 


314  "WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

gible  to  general  readers  unversed  in  textual  criticism, 
and  has  won  from  them  the  veneration  that  it  merits.^ 
Nicholas  Rowe,  a  popular  dramatist  of  Queen 
Anne's  reign,  and  poet  laureate  to  George  I,  was  the 
first  critical  editor  of  Shakespeare.  He  produced  an 
edition  of  his  plays  in  six  octavo  volumes  in  1709. 
^,.  ,  ,         A  new  edition  in  eight  volumes  followed  in 

Nicholas  ° 

Rowe,  1 7 14,    and   another    hand    added    a   ninth 

1674-1718.  Yolume  which  included  the  poems.  Rowe 
prefixed  a  valuable  life  of  the  poet  embodying 
traditions  which  were  in  danger  of  perishing  without 
a  record.  His  text  followed  that  of  the  Fourth  Folio. 
The  plays  were  printed  in  the  same  order  except 
that  he  transferred  the  spurious  pieces  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end.  Rowe  did  not  compare  his 
text  with  that  of  the  First  Folio  or  of  the  quartos, 
but  in  the  case  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  he  met  with  an 
early  quarto  while  his  edition  was  passing  through 
the  press,  and  inserted  at  the  end  of  the  play  the  pro- 
logue which  is  only  met  with  in  the  quartos.  He 
made  a  few  happy  emendations,  some  of  which 
coincide  accidentally  with  the  readings  of  the  First 
Folio ;  but  his  text  is  deformed  by  many  palpable 
errors.  His  practical  experience  as  a  playwright 
induced  him,  however,  to  prefix  for  the  first  time  a  list 
of  dramatis pers ones  \.o  each  play,  to  divide  and  number 
acts  and  scenes  on  rational  principles,  and  to  mark  the 

^  The  best  account  of  eighteenth-century  criticism  of  .Shakespeare 
is  to  be  found  in  the  preface  to  the  Cambridge  edition  by  Mr.  Aldis 
Wright.  The  memoirs  of  the  various  editors  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography  supply  useful  information.  I  have  made  liberal 
u^e  of  these  sources  in  the  sketch  given  in  the  following  pages. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  3 1 5 

entrances  and  exits  of  the  characters.  Spelling,  punct- 
uation, and  grammar  he  corrected  and  modernised. 

The  poet  Pope  was  Shakespeare's  second  editor. 
His  edition  in  six  quarto  volumes  was  completed  in 
Alexander  ^7-5-  "^^^  poems,  edited  by  Dr.  George 
Pope,  Sewell,  with  an  essay  on  the  rise  and  prog- 

I  -1744-  j-ggg  q£  ^^q  stage,  and  a  glossary,  appeared 
in  a  seventh  volume.  Pope  had  few  qualifications 
for  the  task,  and  the  venture  was  a  commercial 
failure.  In  his  preface  Pope,  while  he  fully  rec- 
ognised Shakespeare's  native  genius,  deemed  his 
achievement  deficient  in  artistic  quality.  Pope 
claimed  to  have  collated  the  text  of  the  Fourth  Folio 
with  that  of  all  preceding  editions,  and  although  his 
work  indicates  that  he  had  access  to  the  First  Folio 
and  some  of  the  quartos,  it  is  clear  that  his  text 
was  based  on  that  of  Rowe.  His  innovations  are 
numerous,  and  are  derived  from  '  his  private  sense 
and  conjecture,'  but  they  are  often  plausible  and 
ingenious.  He  was  the  first  to  indicate  the  place  of 
each  new  scene,  and  he  improved  on  Rowe's  subdivi- 
sion of  the  scenes.  A  second  edition  of  Pope's  version 
in  ten  duodecimo  volumes  appeared  in  1728  with 
Sewell's  name  on  the  title-page  as  well  as  Pope's. 
There  were  few  alterations  in  the  text,  though  a  pre- 
liminary table  supplied  a  list  of  twenty-eight  quartos. 
Other  editions  followed  in  1735  and  1768.  The  last 
was  printed  at  Garrick's  suggestion  at  Birmingham 
from  Baskerville's  types. 

Pope  found  a  rigorous  critic  in  Lewis  Theobald,  who 
although  contemptible  as  a  writer  of  original  verse  and 


3l6  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

prose  proved  himself  the  most  inspired  of  all  the  text 
Lewis  ^^"^^  critics  of  Shakespeare.     Pope  savagely 

Theobald,  avcnged  himself  on  his  censor  by  holding  him 
-1744-  j^jp  |-Q  j-iclicule  as  the  hero  of  the  '  Dunciad.' 
Theobald  first  displayed  his  critical  skill  in  1726  in  a 
volume  which  deserves  to  rank  as  a  classic  in  English 
literature.  The  title  runs  '  Shakespeare  Restored,  or 
a  specimen  of  the  many  errors  as  well  committed  as 
unamended  by  Mr.  Pope  in  his  late  edition  of  this 
poet,  designed  not  only  to  correct  the  said  edition  but 
to  restore  the  true  reading  of  Shakespeare  in  all  the 
editions  ever  yet  publish'd.'  There  at  page  137  ap- 
pears Theobald's  great  emendation  in  Shakespeare's 
account  of  Falstaff's  death  (Henry  V,  11.  iii.  17): 
'  His  nose  was  as  sharp  as  a  pen  and  a'  babbled  of 
green  fields,'  in  place  of  the  reading  in  the  old  copies, 
'  His  nose  was  as  sharp  as  a  pen  and  a  table  of 
green  fields.'  In  1733  Theobald  brought  out  his 
edition  of  Shakespeare  in  seven  volumes.  In  1740  it 
reached  a  second  issue.  A  third  edition  was  published 
in  1752.  Others  are  dated  1772  and  1773.  It  is 
stated  that  12,860  copies  in  all  were  sold.  Theobald 
made  the  First  Folio  the  basis  of  his  text,  although  he 
failed  to  adopt  all  the  correct  readings  of  that  version, 
but  over  300  corrections  or  emendations  which  he 
made  in  his  edition  have  become  part  and  parcel  of 
the  authorised  canon.  Theobald's  principles  of  text- 
ual criticism  were  as  enlightened  as  his  practice  was 
triumphant.  '  I  ever  labour,'  he  wrote  to  Warburton, 
'  to  make  the  smallest  deviation  that  I  possibly  can 
from  the  text ;  never  to  alter  at  all  where  I  can  by 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  317 

any  means  explain  a  passage  with  sense ;  nor  ever 
by  any  emendation  to  make  the  author  better  when  it 
is  probable  the  text  came  from  his  own  hands.' 
Theobald  has  every  right  to  the  title  of  the  Porson  of 
Shakespearean  criticism.^  The  following  are  favour- 
able specimens  of  his  insight.  In  '  Macbeth  '  (i.  vii.  6) 
for  '  this  bank  and  school  of  time,'  he  substituted 
the  familiar  'bank  and  shoal  of  time.'  In  'Antony 
and  Cleopatra '  the  old  copies  (v.  ii.  8y)  made 
Cleopatra  say  of  Antony  : 

For  his  bounty, 
There  was  no  winter  in  't;   an  Anthony  it  was 
That  grew  the  more  by  reaping. 

For  the  gibberish  '  an  Anthony  it  was,'  Theobald  read 
'  an  autumn  'twas,'  and  thus  gave  the  lines  true  point 
and  poetry.  A  third  notable  instance,  somewhat 
more  recondite,  is  found  in  '  Coriolanus '  (11.  i.  59-60) 
where  Menenius  asks  the  tribunes  in  the  First  Folio 
version  '  What  harm  can  your  besom  conspectuities 
[i.e.  vision  or  eyes]  glean  out  of  this  character .''  ' 
Theobald  replaced  the  meaningless  epithet  'besom' 
by  '  bisson  '  (i.e.  purblind),  a  recognised  Elizabethan 
word  which  Shakespeare  had  already  employed  in 
'  Hamlet'  (11.  ii.  529).^ 

^  Mr.  Churton  Collins's  admirable  essay  on  Theobald's  textual 
criticism  of  Shakespeare  entitled  '  The  Porson  of  Shakespearean  Critics,' 
is  reprinted  from  the    Quarterly  Revieui  in  his  Essays   and  Studies, 

1895,  PP-  -63  ^^1* 

-  Collier  doubtless  followed  Theobald's  hint  when  he  pretended  to 

have  found  in  his '  Perkins  Folio  '  the  extremely  happy  emendation  (now 

generally  adopted)   of  'bisson   multitude'  for  'bosom   multiplied'  in 

Coriolanus's  speech  : 

How  shall  this  bisson  multitude  digest 

The  senate's  courtesy? —  {Coriolanus,  in.  i.  131-2.) 


3l8  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

The  fourth  editor  was  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer,  a 
country  gentleman  without  much  Hterary  culture,  but 
Sir  possessing  a  large  measure  of  mother  wit. 

Hanmer  ^^  ^^^^  Speaker  in  the  House  of  Commons 
1677-1746.  for  a  few  months  in  1714,  and  retiring  soon 
afterwards  from  public  life  devoted  his  leisure  to  a 
thoroughgoing  scrutiny  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  His 
edition,  which  was  the  earliest  to  pretend  to  typo- 
graphical beauty,  was  printed  at  the  Oxford  University 
Press  in  1744  in  six  quarto  volumes.  It  contained  a 
number  of  good  engravings  by  Gravelot  after  designs  by 
Francis  Hayman,  and  was  long  highly  valued  by  book 
collectors.  No  editor's  name  was  given.  In  forming 
his  text,  Hanmer  depended  exclusively  on  his  own 
ingenuity.  He  made  no  recourse  to  the  old  copies. 
The  result  was  a  mass  of  common  sense  emendations, 
some  of  which  have  been  permanently  accepted.^ 
Hanmer's  edition  was  reprinted  in  1 770-1. 

In  1747  Bishop  Warburton  produced  a  revised 
version  of  Pope's  edition  in  eight  volumes.  Warbur- 
Bishop  ton  was  hardly  better  qualified  for  the  task 
toif'^ie'^s-  ^^^^'^  Pope,  and  such  improvements  as  he 
1779-  introduced     are     mainly     borrowed      from 

Theobald  and  Hanmer.  On  both  these  critics  he 
arrogantly  and  unjustly  heaped  abuse  in  his  preface. 
The  Bishop  was  consequently  criticised  with  appro- 


1  A  happy  example  of  his  shrewdness  may  be  quoted  from  King 
Lear,  ill.  vi.  72,  where  in  all  previous  editions  Edgar's  enumeration  of 
various  kinds  of  dogs  included  the  line  '  Hound  or  spaniel  brach  or 
hym  [or  him].'  For  the  last  word  Hanmer  substituted  'lym,' which 
was  the  Elizabethan  synonym  for  bloodhound. 


BIBLIOGR.\PHY  319 

priate  severity  for  his  pretentious  incompetence  by 
many  writers ;  among  them,  by  Thomas  Edwards, 
whose  '  Supplement  to  Warburton's  Edition  of  Shake- 
speare' first  appeared  in  1747,  and,  having  been  re- 
named '  The  Canons  of  Criticism '  next  year  in  the 
third  edition,  passed  through  as  many  as  seven 
editions  by   1765. 

Dr.  Johnson,  the  sixth  editor,  completed  his  edition 
in  eight  volumes  in  1765,  and  a  second  issue  followed 
three  years  later.  Although  he  made  some 
son,  1709-  independent  collation  of  the  quartos,  his 
^'  textual  labours  were  slight,  and  his  verbal 

notes  show  little  close  knowledge  of  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  century  literature.  But  in  his  preface 
and  elsewhere  he  displays  a  genuine,  if  occasionally 
sluggish,  sense  of  Shakespeare's  greatness,  and  his 
massive  sagacity  enabled  him  to  indicate  convincingly 
Shakespeare's  triumphs  of  characterisation. 

The  seventh  editor,  Edward  Capell,  advanced  on 

his  predecessors  in  many  respects.     He  was  a  clumsy 

writer,    and    Johnson    declared,    with   some 

Edward  '  •' 

Capell,  justice,  that  he  'gabbled  monstrously,'  but 
1713-81-  ^jg  collation  of  the  quartos  and  the  First  and 
Second  Folios  was  conducted  on  more  thorough  and 
scholarly  methods  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  not 
excepting  Theobald.  His  industry  was  untiring,  and 
he  is  said  to  have  transcribed  the  whole  of  Shake- 
speare ten  times.  Capell's  edition  appeared  in  ten 
small  octavo  volumes  in  1768.  He  showed  himself 
well  versed  in  Elizabethan  literature  in  a  volume  of 
notes  which  appeared  in   1774,  and  in  three  further 


320  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

volumes,  entitled  '  Notes,  Various  Readings,  and  the 
School  of  Shakespeare,'  which  were  not  published  till 
1783,  two  years  after  his  death.  The  last  volume, 
'The  School  of  Shakespeare,'  consisted  of  'authentic 
extracts  from  divers  English  books  that  were  in  print 
in  that  author's  time,'  to  which  was  appended  'Notitia 
Dramatica ;  or.  Tables  of  Ancient  Plays  (from  their 
beginning  to  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II).' 

George  Steevens,  whose  saturnine  humour  involved 

him  in  a  lifelong  series  of  literary  quarrels  with  rival 

students  of   Shakespeare,  made   invaluable 

George  ^  ' 

Steevens,  Contributions  to  Shakespearean  study.  In 
173  -I  oo-  jy55  he  reprinted  twenty  of  the  plays  from 
the  quartos.  Soon  afterwards  he  revised  Johnson's 
edition  without  much  assistance  from  the  Doctor, 
and  his  revision,  which  embodied  numerous  improve- 
ments, appeared  in  ten  volumes  in  1773.  It  was  long 
regarded  as  the  standard  version.  Steevens's  anti- 
quarian knowledge  alike  of  Elizabethan  history  and 
literature  was  greater  than  that  of  any  previous 
editor ;  his  citations  of  parallel  passages  from  the 
writings  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries,  in  elucida- 
tion of  obscure  words  and  phrases,  have  not  been  ex- 
ceeded in  number  or  excelled  in  aptness  by  any  of  his 
successors.  All  commentators  of  recent  times  are  more 
deeply  indebted  in  this  department  of  their  labours 
to  Steevens  than  to  any  other  critic.  But  he  lacked 
taste  as  well  as  temper,  and  excluded  from  his  edition 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  and  poems,  because,  he  wrote, 
'the  strongest  Act  of  Parliament  that  could  be  framed 
would    fail    to    compel    readers    into   their  service.'  ^ 

'  Edition  of  1793,  vol.  i.  p.  7. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  321 

The  second  edition  of  Johnson  and  Steevens's  ver- 
sion appeared  in  ten  volumes  in  1778.  The  third 
edition,  pubHshed  in  ten  volumes  in  1785,  was  re- 
vised by  Steevens's  friend,  Isaac  Reed  (i  742-1 807),  a 
scholar  of  his  own  type.  The  fourth  and  last  edition 
published  in  Steevens's  lifetime  was  prepared  by 
himself  in  fifteen  volumes  in  1793.  As  he  grew 
older,  he  made  some  reckless  changes  in  the  text, 
chiefly  with  the  unhallowed  object  of  mystifying 
those  engaged  in  the  same  field.  With  a  malignity 
that  was  not  without  humour,  he  supplied,  too,  many 
obscene  notes  to  coarse  expressions,  and  he  pretended 
that  he  owed  his  indecencies  to  one  or  other  of  two 
highly  respectable  clergymen,  Richard  Amner  and 
John  Collins,  whose  surnames  were  in  each  instance 
appended.  He  had  known  and  quarrelled  with  both. 
Such  proofs  of  his  perversity  justified  the  title  which 
Gifford  applied  to  him  of  '  the  Puck  of  Commen- 
tators.' 

Edmund  Malone,  who  lacked  Steevens's  quick  wit 
and  incisive  style,  was  a  laborious  and  amiable  archce- 
Edmund  ologist,  without  much  ear  for  poetry  or  deli- 
Maione,  catc  literary  taste.  He  threw  abundance  of 
1741-1  12.  ^^^^^^  light  on  Shakespeare's  biography,  and 
on  the  chronology  and  sources  of  his  works,  while 
his  researches  into  the  beginnings  of  the  English 
stage  added  a  new  chapter  of  first-rate  importance  to 
English  literary  history.  To  Malone  is  due  the  first 
rational  '  attempt  to  ascertain  the  order  in  which  the 
plays  attributed  to  Shakespeare  were  written.'  His 
earliest    results    on    the    topic    were    contributed    to 

Y 


322  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Steevens's  edition  of  1778.  Two  years  later  he 
published,  as  a  supplement  to  Steevens's  work,  two 
volumes  containing  a  history  of  the  Elizabethan  stage, 
with  reprints  of  Arthur  Brooke's  'Romeus  and  Juliet,' 
Shakespeare's  Poems,  and  the  plays  falsely  ascribed 
to  him  in  the  Third  and  Fourth  Folios.  A  quarrel 
with  Steevens  followed,  and  was  never  closed.  In 
1787  Malone  issued  'A  Dissertation  on  the  Three 
Parts  of  King  Henry  VI,'  tending  to  show  that  those 
plays  were  not  originally  written  by  Shakespeare. 
In  1790  appeared  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  in  ten 
volumes,  the  first  in  two  parts. 

What  is  known  among  booksellers  as  the  '  First 
Variorum '  edition  of  Shakespeare  was  prepared  by 
Variorum  Stecvcns's  friend,  Isaac  Reed,after  Steevens's 
editions.  death.  It  was  based  on  a  copy  of  Steevens's 
work  of  1793,  which  had  been  enriched  with  numerous 
manuscript  additions,  and  it  embodied  the  published 
notes  and  prefaces  of  preceding  editors.  It  was  pub- 
lished in  twenty-one  volumes  in  1803.  The  'Second 
Variorum  '  edition,  which  was  mainly  a  reprint  of  the 
first,  was  published  in  twenty-one  volumes  in  18 13. 
The  '  Third  Variorum  '  was  prepared  for  the  press  by 
James  Boswell  the  younger,  the  son  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
biographer.  It  was  based  on  Malone's  edition  of  1790, 
but  included  massive  accumulations  of  notes  left  in 
manuscript  by  Malone  at  his  death.  Malone  had 
been  long  engaged  on  a  revision  of  his  edition,  but 
died  in  18 12,  before  it  was  completed.  Boswell's 
*  Malone,'  as  the  new  work  is  often  called,  appeared 
in  twenty-one  volumes  in  182 1.     It  is  the  most  valu- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  323 

able  of  all  collected  editions  of  Shakespeare's  works, 
but  the  three  volumes  of  preliminary  essays  on  Shake- 
speare's biography  and  writings,  and  the  illustrative 
notes  brought  together  in  the  final  volume,  are  con- 
fusedly arranged  and  are  unindexed ;  many  of  the 
essays  and  notes  break  off  abruptly  at  the  point  at 
which  they  were  left  at  Malone's  death.  A  new 
'Variorum'  edition,  on  an  exhaustive  scale,  was  under- 
taken by  Mr.  H.  Howard  Furness  of  Philadelphia,  and 
eleven  volumes  have  appeared  since  1871  ('  Romeo 
and  Juliet,'  'Macbeth,'  'Hamlet,'  2  vols.,  'King  Lear,' 
'Othello,'  'Merchant  of  Venice,'  'As  You  Like  It,' 
'Tempest,'  'Midsummer  Night's  Dream,'  and  'Win- 
ter's Tale '). 

Of  nineteenth-century  editors  who  have  prepared 
collective  editions  of  Shakespeare's  work  with  original 
Nine-  annotations  those  who  have  most  successfully 

cTntur"  pursued  the  great  traditions  of  the  eigh- 
editors.  tccnth  ccntury  are  Alexander  Dyce,  Howard 
Staunton,  Nikolaus  Delius,  and  the  Cambridge  editors 
William  George  Clark  (1821-78)  and  Dr.  Aldis 
Wright. 

Alexander  Dyce  was  almost  as  well  read  as 
Steevens  in  Elizabethan  literature,  and  especially  in 
Alexander  ^^^  drama  of  the  period,  and  his  edition  of 
Dyce,  Shakespeare    in    nine  volumes,   which  was 

179  -I  9-  i^j-j,^  published  in  1857,  has  many  new  and 
valuable  illustrative  notes  and  a  few  good  textual 
emendations,  as  well  as  a  useful  glossary ;  but  Dyce's 
annotations  are  not  always  adequate,  and  often  tan- 
talise the  reader  by  their  brevity.     Howard  Staunton's 


324  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

edition  first  appeared  in  three  volumes  between  1868 

„  ,  and  1870.  He  also  was  well  read  in  con- 
Howard  ' 

Staunton,  temporary  literature  and  was  an  acute  text- 
1810-74.  ^^1  critic.  His  introductions  bring  together 
much  interesting  stage  history.  Nikolaus  Delius's 
„.,  ,  edition  was  issued  at  Elberfeld  in  seven  vol- 

Nikolaus 

Deiius,  umes  between  1854  and  1861.  Delius's  text 
1813-88.  .g  formed  on  sound  critical  principles  and  is  to 
be  trusted  thoroughly.  A  fifth  edition  in  two  volumes 
appeared  in  1882.  The  Cambridge  edition,  which 
The  Cam-  first  appeared  in  nine  volumes  between  1863 
edifiin  ^^^  1866,  exhaustively  notes  the  textual 
1863-6.  variations  of  all  preceding  editions,  and 
supplies  the  best  and  fullest  apparatus  criticiis.  (Of 
new  editions,  one  dated  1887  is  also  in  nine  volumes, 
and  another,  dated  1893,  in  forty  volumes.) 

Other  editors  of  the  complete  works  of  Shake- 
speare of  the  nineteenth  century,  whose  labours, 
although  of  some  value,  present  fewer  distinctive  char- 
acteristics are:  William  Harness  (1825,  8  vols.); 
Samuel  Weller  Singer  (1826,  10  vols.,  printed  at  the 
Other  Chiswick  Press  for  William  Pickering,  illus- 

nineteenth-  ^^^^^^  ^^  Stothard  and  others;  reissued  in 

century  J  ■ 

editions.  1 8  56  with  cssays  by  William  Watkiss 
Lloyd);  Charles  Knight,  with  discursive  notes  and 
pictorial  illustrations  by  F.  W.  Fairholt  and  others 
('  Pictorial  edition,'  8  vols.,  including  biography 
and  the  doubtful  plays,  1838-43,  often  reissued 
under  different  designations);  Bryan  Waller  Procter, 
i.e.  Barry  Cornwall  (1839-43,  3  vols.);  John 
Payne    Collier    (184 1-4,    8    vols.;    another    edition, 


BIBLTOGRAPHY  325 

8  vols.,  privately  printed,  1878,  4to);  Samuel 
Phelps,  the  actor  (1852-4,  2  vols.;  another  edition, 
1882-4);  J.  O.  Halliwell  (1853-61,  15  vols,  folio,  with 
an  encyclopaedic  collection  of  annotations  of  earlier 
editors  and  pictorial  illustrations);  Richard  Grant 
White  (Boston,  U.S.A.,  1857-65,  12  vols.);  W.  J. 
Rolfe  (New  York,  1871-96,  40  vols.);  the  Rev. 
H.  N.  Hudson  (the  Harvard  edition,  Boston,  1881, 
20  vols.).  The  latest  complete  annotated  editions 
published  in  this  country  are,  '  The  Henry  Irving 
Shakespeare,'  edited  by  F.  A.  Marshall  and  others  — 
especially  useful  for  notes  on  stage  history  (8  vols. 
1888-90)  —  and  'The  Temple  Shakespeare,'  concisely 
edited  by  Mr.  Israel  Gollancz  (38  vols.  i2mo,  1894-6). 
Of  one-volume  editions  of  the  unannotated  text, 
the  best  are  the  Globe,  edited  by  W.  G.  Clark  and 
Dr.  Aldis  Wright  (1864,  and  constantly  reprinted  — 
since  1891  with  a  new  and  useful  glossary);  the 
Leopold  (1876,  from  the  text  of  Delius,  with  preface 
by  Dr.  Furnivall);  and  the  Oxford,  edited  by  Mr. 
W.  J.  Craig  (1894). 


326  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


XX 

POS  THUMO  US  REPUTA  TION 

Shakespeare  defied  at  every  stage  in  his  career  the 
laws  of  the  classical  drama.  He  rode  roughshod 
over  the  unities  of  time,  place,  and  action.  There 
were  critics  in  his  day  who  zealously  championed  the 
ancient  rules,  and  viewed  with  distrust  any  infringe- 
ment of  them.  But  the  force  of  Shakespeare's 
genius  —  its  revelation  of  new  methods  of  dramatic 
art  —  was  not  lost  on  the  lovers  of  the  ancient  ways ; 
and  even  those  who,  to  assuage  their  consciences, 
entered  a  formal  protest  against  his  innovations, 
soon  swelled  the  chorus  of  praise  with  which  his 
work  was  welcomed  by  contemporary  playgoers, 
cultured  and  uncultured  alike.  The  unauthorised 
publishers  of  '  Troilus  and  Cressida '  in  1608  faith- 
fully echoed  public  opinion  when  they  prefaced  to 
the  work  the  note  :  '  This  author's  comedies  are  so 
framed  to  the  life  that  they  serve  for  the  most  com- 
mon commentaries  of  all  actions  of  our  lives,  showing 
such  a  dexterity  and  power  of  wit  that  the  most  dis- 
pleased with  plays  are  pleased  with  his  comedies.  .  .  . 
So  much  and  such  savoured  salt  of  wit  is  in  his 
comedies  that  they  seem  for  their  height  of  pleasure 
to  be  born  in  the  sea  that  broutrht  forth  Venus.' 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  327 

Anticipating  the  final  verdict,  the  editors  of  the 
First  Folio  wrote,  seven  years  after  Shakespeare's 
death  :  '  These  plays  have  had  their  trial  already  and 
stood  out  all  appeals.'^  Ben  Jonson,  the  staunch- 
est  champion  of  classical  canons,  noted  that  Shake- 
speare 'wanted  art,'  but  he  allowed  him, 
son's  tri-  in  vcrscs  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio,  the 
^"*^'  first   place   among    all    dramatists,    includ- 

ing those  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  claimed  that  all 
Europe  owed  him  homage  : 

Triumph,  my  Britun,  thou  hast  one  to  show, 
To  whom  all  scenes  of  Europe  homage  owe. 
He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time. 

In  1630  Milton  penned  in  like  strains  an  epitaph  on 
'  the  great  heir  of  fame  ' : 

What  needs  my  Shakespeare  for  his  honoured  bones 

The  labour  of  an  age  in  piled  stones? 

Or  that  his  hollowed  reliques  should  be  hid 

Under  a  star-y-pointing  pyramid? 

Dear  son  of  memory,  great  heir  of  fame, 

What  need'st  thou  such  weak  witness  of  thy  name? 

Thou  in  our  wonder  and  astonishment 

Hast  built  thyself  a  lifelong  monument. 

A  writer  of  fine  insight  who  veiled  himself  un- 
der the  initials  I.  M.  S.'-^  contributed  to  the  Second 

^  Cf.  the  opening  line  of  Matthew  Arnold's  Sonnet  on  Shake- 
speare : 

Others  abide  our  question.     Thou  art  free. 

2  These  letters  have  been  interpreted  as  standing  for  the  inscription 
'  In  Memoriam  Scriptoris  '  as  well  as  for  the  name  of  the  writer.  In  the 
latter  connection,  they  have  been  variously  and  inconclusively  read  as 
Jasper  Mayne  (Student),  a  young  0,\ford  writer;  as  John  Marston 
(Student  or  Satirist);   and  as  John  Milton  (Senior  or  Student). 


328  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Folio  of  1632  a  splendid  eulogy.  The  opening  lines 
declare  '  Shakespeare's  freehold  '  to  have  been  : 

A  mind  reflecting  ages  past,  whiose  clear 
And  equal  surface  can  make  things  appear 
Distant  a  thousand  years,  and  represent 
Them  in  their  lively  colours'  just  extent. 

It  was  his  faculty 

To  outrun  hasty  time,  retrieve  the  fates, 
Roll  back  the  heavens,  blow  ope  the  iron  gates 
Of  death  and  Lethe,  where  (confused)  lie 
Great  heaps  of  ruinous  mortality. 

Milton  and  I.  M.  S.  were  followed  within  ten  years 
by  critics  of  tastes  so  varied  as  the  dramatist  of  do- 
mesticity Thomas  Heywood,  the  gallant  lyrist  Sir 
John  Suckling,  the  philosophic  and  'ever-memorable' 
John  Hales  of  Eton,  and  the  untiring  versifier  of  the 
stage  and  court,  Sir  William  D'Avenant.  Before  1640 
Hales  is  said  to  have  triumphantly  established,  in  a 
public  dispute  held  with  men  of  learning  in  his  rooms 
at  Eton,  the  proposition  that  'there  was  no  subject 
of  which  any  poet  ever  writ  but  he  could  produce  it 
much  better  done  in  Shakespeare.'  ^     Leonard  Digges 

1  Charles  Gildon,  in  1694,  in  'Some  Reflections  on  Mr.  Rymer's 
Short  View  of  Tragedy,'  which  he  addressed  to  Dryden,  gives  the 
classical  version  of  this  incident.  'To  give  the  world,'  Gildon  informs 
Dryden,  '  some  satisfaction  that  Shakespear  has  had  as  great  a  Venera- 
tion paid  his  Excellence  by  men  of  unquestion'd  parts  as  this  I  now 
express  of  him,  I  shall  give  some  account  of  what  I  have  heard  from 
your  Mouth,  Sir,  about  the  noble  Triumph  he  gain'd  over  all  the 
Ancients  by  the  Judgment  of  the  ablest  Critics  of  that  time.  The 
Matter  of  Fact  (if  my  Memory  fail  me  not)  was  this.  Mr.  Hales  of  Eaton 
affirm'd  that  he  wou'd  shew  all  the  Poets  of  Antiquity  outdone  by 
vShakespear,  in  all  the  Topics,  and  common  places  made  use  of  in  Poetry. 
The  Enemies  of  Shakespear  wou'd  by  no  means  yield  him  so  much 
Excellence  :   so  that  it  came  to  a  Resolution  of  a  trial  of  skill  upon  that 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  329 

(in  the   1640  edition  of   the  'Poems')  asserted  that 

every   revival    of    Shakespeare's  plays  drew  crowds 

to  pit,  boxes,  and  galleries  alike.     At  a  little  later  date, 

Shakespeare's  plays  were  the  '  closet  companions  '  of 

Charles  I's  'solitudes.'^ 

After   the    Restoration    public  taste  in  England 

veered   towards  the  French  and    classical    dramatic 

models.^     Shakespeare's  work  was  subjected  to  some 

unfavourable   criticism    as    the    product   of 
1660-1702.  . 

nature  to  the  exclusion  01  art,  but  the  eclipse 

proved  more  partial  and  temporary  than  is  commonly 

admitted.     The  pedantic  censure  of  Thomas  Rymer 

on  the    score  of    Shakespeare's   indifference   to   the 

classical    canons    attracted    attention,  but   awoke   in 

England  no  substantial  echo.     In  his  'Short  View  of 

Tragedy'    (1692)    Rymer   mainly    concentrated    his 

attention    on    'Othello,'    and    reached   the    eccentric 

conclusion  that  it  was  '  a  bloody  farce  without  salt  or 

savour.'     In   Pepys's   eyes  'The  Tempest'  had  'no 

great   wit,'    and    '  Midsummer   Night's  Dream '  was 

'  the    most    insipid    and    ridiculous    play ;    yet   this 

Subject;  the  place  agreed  on  for  the  Dispute  was  Mr.  Hales's  Chamber 
at  Eaton;  a  great  many  Books  were  sent  down  by  the  Enemies  of 
this  Poet,  and  on  the  appointed  day  my  Lord  Falkland,  Sir  John 
Suckling,  and  all  the  Persons  of  Quality  that  had  Wit  and  Learning, 
and  interested  themselves  in  the  Quarrel,  met  there,  and  upon  a  thorough 
Disquisition  of  the  point,  the  Judges  chose  by  agreement  out  of  this 
Learned  and  Ingenious  Assembly  unanimously  gave  the  Preference  to 
Shakespear.  And  the  Greek  and  Roman  Poets  were  adjudg'd  to 
Vail  at  least  their  Glory  in  that  of  the  English  Hero.' 

^  Milton,  Iconoclastes,  1690,  pp.  9-10. 

-  Cf.  Evelyn'' s  Diary ^  November  26,  1661  :  'I  saw  Hamlet,  Prince 
of  Denmark,  plaved,  but  now  the  old  plays  began  to  disgust  the  refined 
age,  since  His  Majesty's  being  so  long  abroad.' 


330  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

exacting  critic  witnessed  thirty-six  performances  of 
twelve  of  Shakespeare's  plays  between  October  ii, 
1660,  and  February  6,  1668-9,  seeing  'Hamlet' 
four  times,  and  '  Macbeth,'  which  he  admitted  to  be 
'  a  most  excellent  play  for  variety,'  nine  times. 
Dryden's  Dryden,  the  literary  dictator  of  the  day, 
view.  repeatedly  complained  of  Shakespeare's  in- 

equalities—  'he  is  the  very  Janus  of  poets. '^  But  in 
almost  the  same  breath  Dryden  declared  that  Shake- 
speare was  held  in  as  much  veneration  among  English- 
men as  yEschylus  among  the  Athenians,  and  that '  he 
was  the  man  who  of  all  modern  and  perhaps  ancient 
poets  had  the  largest  and  most  comprehensive  soul.  .  .  . 
When  he  describes  anything,  you  more  than  see  it — 
you  feel  it  too.'^  In  1693,  when  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller 
presented  Dryden  with  a  copy  of  the  Chandos  portrait 
of  Shakespeare,  the  poet  acknowledged  the  gift  thus: 

TO    SIR   GODFREV    KNELLER 

Shakespear,  thy  Gift,  I  place  before  my  sight; 
With  awe,  I  ask  his  Blessing  'ere  I  write; 
With  Reverence  look  on  his  Majestick  Face; 
Proud  to  be  less,  but  of  his  Godlike  Race. 
His  Soul  Inspires  me,  while  thy  Praise  I  write. 
And  I,  like  Tencer,  under  Ajax  tight. 

Writers  of  Charles  II's  reign  of  such  opposite 
temperaments  as    Margaret   Cavendish,    duchess    of 

1  Conquest  of  Granada,  1672. 

2  Essay  on  Dramadc  Poesie,  1668.  Some  interesting,  if  more 
qualified,  criticism  by  Dryden  also  appears  in  his  preface  to  an  adapta- 
tion of  'Troilus  and  Cressida'in  1679.  In  the  prologue  to  his  and 
D'Avenant's  adaptation  of  'The  Tempest'  in  1676,  he  wrote: 

But  Shakespeare's  magic  could  not  copied  be; 
Within  that  circle  none  durst  walk  but  he. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  33 1 

Newcastle,  and  Sir  Charles  Sedley  vigorously  argued 
for  Shakespeare's  supremacy.  As  a  girl  the  sober 
duchess  declares  she  fell  in  love  with  Shakespeare.  In 
her  'Sociable  Letters,'  which  were  published  in  1664, 
she  enthusiastically,  if  diffusely,  described  how  Shake- 
speare creates  the  illusion  that  he  had  been  '  trans- 
formed into  every  one  of  those  persons  he  hath 
described,'  and  suffered  all  their  emotions.  When 
she  witnessed  one  of  his  tragedies  she  felt  persuaded 
that  she  was  witnessing  an  episode  in  real  life. 
'  Indeed,'  she  concludes,  '  Shakespeare  had  a  clear 
judgment,  a  quick  wit,  a  subtle  observation,  a  deep 
apprehension,  and  a  most  eloquent  elocution.'  The 
profligate  Sedley,  in  a  prologue  to  the  'Wary  Widdow,' 
a  comedy  by  one  Higden,  produced  in  1693,  apostro- 
phised Shakespeare  thus : 

Shackspear  whose  fruitful!  Genius,  happy  wit 
Was  fram'd  and  finisht  at  a  lucky  hit 
The  pride  of  Nature,  and  the  shame  of  Schools, 
Born  to  Create,  and  not  to  Learn  from  Rules. 

Many  adaptations  of  Shakespeare's  plays  were 
contrived  to  meet  current  sentiment  of  a  less  admirable 
type.  But  they  failed  efficiently  to  supersede  the 
originals.  Dryden  and  D' Avenant  converted  '  The 
Tempest'  into  an  opera  (1670).  D'Avenant  single- 
handed  adapted  'The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen' (1668) and 
Restori-  '  Macbcth '  (1674).  Dryden  dealt  similarly 
tionadap-  with  '  Troilus  '  (1679);  Thomas  Duffett  with 
'The  Tempest'  (1675);  Shadwell  with 
'Timon'  (1678);  Nahum  Tate  with  'Richard  II' 
(1681),  '  Lear'  (1681),  and  'Coriolanus'  (1682);  John 


332  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Crowne  with  'Henry  VI'  (1681 );  D'Urfey  with  'Cym- 
belinc  '  (1682);  Ravenscoft  with  'Titus  Andronicus  ' 
(1687);  Otway  with  '  Romeo  and  JuHet  '  (1692),  and 
John  Sheffield,  duke  of  Buckingham,  with  '  Julius 
Csesar '  (1692).  But  during  the  same  period  the  chief 
actor  of  the  day,  Thomas  Betterton,  won  his  spurs  as 
the  interpreter  of  Shakespeare's  leading  parts,  often 
in  unrevised  versions.  Hamlet  was  accounted  that 
actor's  masterpiece.^  '  No  succeeding  tragedy  tor 
several  years,'  wrote  Downes,  the  prompter  at  Better- 
ton's  theatre,  '  got  more  reputation  or  money  to  the 
company  than  this.' 

From  the  accession  of  Queen  Anne  to  the  present 
day  the  tide  of  Shakespeare's  reputation,  both  on  the 
From  1702  stage  and  among  critics,  has  flowed  onward 
onwards.  almost  Uninterruptedly.  The  censorious 
critic,  John  Dennis,  in  his  'Letters'  on  Shakespeare's 
'genius,'  gave  his  work  in  171 1  whole-hearted  com- 
mendation ;  and  two  of  the  greatest  men  of  letters  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Pope  and  Johnson,  although 
they  did  not  withhold  all  censure,  paid  him,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  homage  of  becoming  his  editor.  The  school 
of  textual  criticism  which  Theobald  and  Capell  founded 
in  the  middle  years  of  the  century  has  never  ceased 
its  activity  since  their  day.^  Edmund  Malone's  devo- 
tion at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  biog- 


1  Cf.  Shdkspere^s  Century  of  Praise,  1591-1693,  New  Shakspere 
Society,  eci.  Ingleby  and  Toulmin  Smith,  1879;  and  Fresh  Allusions, 
ed.  Furnivall,  1886. 

^  Cf.  W.  Sidney  Walker,  Critical  Examination  of  the  Text  of 
Shakespeare^  1859. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  333 

raphy  of  the  poet  and  the  contemporary  history  of 
the  stage  secured  for  him  a  vast  band  of  disciples,  of 
whom  Joseph  Hunter  and  John  Payne  Collier  well 
deserve  mention.  But  of  all  Malone's  successors,  James 
Orchard  Halliwell,  afterwards  Halliwell-Phillipps 
(1820-89),  has  made  the  most  important  additions 
to  our  knowledge  of  Shakespeare's  biography. 

Meanwhile,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  there  arose  a  third  school  to  expound  exclu- 
sively the  aesthetic  excellence  of  the  plays.  In  its  in- 
ception the  aesthetic  school  owed  much  to  the  methods 
of  Schlegel  and  other  admiring  critics  of  Shakespeare 
in  Germany.  But  Coleridge  in  his  '  Notes  and  Lect- 
ures '  ^  and  Hazlitt  in  his  '  Characters  of  Shake- 
speare's Plays'  (18 1 7)  are  the  best  representatives 
of  the  aesthetic  school  in  this  or  any  other  country. 
Although  Professor  Dowden,  in  his  '  Shakespeare,  his 
Mind  and  Art '(1874),  and  Mr.  Swinburne  in  his  '  Study 
of  Shakespeare '( 1880),  are  worthy  followers,  Coleridge 
and  Hazlitt  remain  as  aesthetic  critics  unsurpassed.  In 
the  effort  to  supply  a  fuller  interpretation  of  Shake- 
speare's works — textual,  historical,  and  aesthetic — two 
publishing  societies  have  done  much  valuable  work. 
'The  Shakespeare  Society'  was  founded  in  1841  by 
Collier,  Halliwell,  and  their  friends,  and  published 
some  forty-eight  volumes  before  its  dissolution  in  1853. 

^  See  N^oles  and  Lectures  on  Shakespeare  and  other  Poets  by  S.  T. 
Coleridge,  now  Jirst  collected  by  T.Ashe,  1883.  Coleridge  hotly  resented 
the  remark,  which  he  attributed  to  Wordsworth,  that  a  German  critic 
first  taught  us  to  think  correctly  concerning  Shakespeare.  (Coleridge 
to  Mudford,  1818;  cf.  Dyke  Campbell's  memoir  of  Coleridge,  p.  cv.).  But 
there  is  much  to  be  said  for  Wordsworth's  general  view  (see  p.  344,  note  l). 


334  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  New  Shakspere  Society,  which  was  founded  by 
Dr.  Furnivall  in  1874,  issued  during  the  ensuing 
twenty  years  twenty-seven  publications,  illustrative 
mainly  of  the  text  and  of  contemporary  life  and 
literature. 

In  1769  Shakespeare's  'jubilee'  was  celebrated 
for  three  days  (September  6-S)  at  Stratford,  under 
Stratford  the  direction  of  Garrick,  Dr.  Arne,  and 
festivals.  Boswell.  The  festivities  were  repeated 
on  a  small  scale  in  April  1827  and  April  1830. 
'  The  Shakespeare  tercentenary  festival,'  which  was 
held  at  Stratford  from  April  23  to  May  4,  1864, 
claimed  to  be  a  national  celebration.^ 

On  the  English  stage  the  name  of  every  eminent 
actor  since  Betterton,  the  great  actor  of  the  period 
,.   ..  of    the    Restoration,    has     been    identified 

On  the  ' 

English  with  Shakespearean  parts.  Steele,  writing 
'*^^^-  in   the   'Tatler'  (No.  167)  in    reference  to 

Betterton's  funeral  in  the  cloisters  of  Westminster 
Abbey  on  May  2,  1710,  instanced  his  rendering  of 
Othello  as  proof  of  an  unsurpassable  talent  in 
realising  Shakespeare's  subtlest  conceptions  on  the 
stage.  One  great  and  welcome  innovation  in  Shake- 
spearean acting  is  closely  associated  with  Betterton's 
The  first  name.  He  encouraged  the  substitution,  that 
of  acmTsses  "^^^^  inaugurated  by  Killigrew,  of  women  for 
m  Shake-     bovs  in  female  parts.    The  first  ro/c  that  was 

spearean  -'  '■ 

parts.  professionally   rendered   by   a   woman  in   a 

public  theatre  was  that  of  Desdemona  in  '  Othello,' 

1  R.  E.  Hunter,  Shakespeare  and  the  Tercentenary  Celebration^ 
1864. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  335 

apparently  on  December  8,  1660.^  The  actress  on 
this  occasion  is  said  to  have  been  Mrs.  Margaret 
Hughes,  Prince  Rupert's  mistress ;  but  Betterton's  wife, 
who  was  at  first  known  on  the  stage  as  Mrs.  Saunder- 
son,  was  the  first  actress  to  present  a  series  of  Shake- 
speare's great  female  characters.  Mrs.  Betterton  gave 
her  husband  powerful  support,  from  1663  onwards,  in 
such  I'oles  as  Ophelia,  Juliet,  Queen  Catherine,  and  Lady 
Macbeth.  Betterton  formed  a  school  of  actors  who 
carried  on  his  traditions  for  many  years  after  his  death. 
Robert  Wilks  (1670-1732)  as  Hamlet,  and  Barton 
Booth  (1681-1733)  as  Henry  VHI  and  Hotspur,  were 
popularly  accounted  no  unworthy  successors.  Colley 
Gibber  (1671-1757)  as  actor,  theatrical  manager,  and 
dramatic  critic  w-as  both  a  loyal  disciple  of  Betterton 
and  a  lover  of  Shakespeare,  though  his  vanity  and  his 
faith  in  the  ideals  of  the  Restoration  incited  him  to 
perpetrate  many  outrages  on  Shakespeare's  text  when 
preparing  it  for  theatrical  representation.  His  noto- 
rious adaptation  of  'Richard  HI,'  which  was  first  pro- 
duced in  1700,  long  held  the  stage  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  original  version.  But  towards  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  all  earlier  efforts  to  interpret 
Shakespeare  in  the  playhouse  were  eclipsed  in  public 
esteem  by  the  concentrated  energy  and  intelligence 
of  David  Garrick.     Garrick's  enthusiasm  for  the  poet 

1  Thomas  Jordan,  a  very  humble  poet,  wrote  a  prologue  to  notify 
the  new  procedure,  and  referred  to  the  absurdity  of  the  old  custom : 

For  to  speak  truth,  men  act,  that  are  between 
Forty  and  fifty,  wenches  of  fifteen. 
With  bone  so  large  and  nerve  so  uncompliant, 
When  you  call  Desdemona,  enter  Giant. 


336  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

and  his  histrionic  genius  riveted  Shakespeare's  hold 
on  pubHc  taste.  His  claim  to  have  restpred  to  the 
stage  the  text  of  Shakespeare  —  purified  of  Restora- 
tion defilements  —  cannot  be  allowed  without  serious 
qualifications.  Garrick  had  no  scruple  in  presenting 
j^^^.^j  plays  of  Shakespeare  in  versions  that  he  or 

Garrick,  his  frieuds  had  recklessly  garbled.  He  sup- 
1717-79-  plied  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  with  a  happy 
ending ;  he  converted  '  The  Taming  of  The  Shrew '  into 
the  farce  of  '  Katherine  and  Petruchio,'  1754;  he 
introduced  radical  changes  in  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,' 
'Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,'  '  Cymbeline,'  and  '  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream.'  Nevertheless,  no  actor  has 
won  an  equally  exalted  reputation  in  so  vast  and 
varied  a  repertory  of  Shakespearean  roles.  His  tri- 
umphant debut  as  Richard  HI  in  1741  was  followed  by 
equally  successful  performances  of  Hamlet,  Lear, 
Macbeth,  King  John,  Romeo,  Falconbridge,  Othello, 
Leontes,  Benedick,  and  Antony  in  '  Antony  and 
Cleopatra.'  Garrick  was  not  quite  undeservedly 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey  on  February  i,  1779, 
at  the  foot  of  Shakespeare's  statue. 

Garrick  was  ably  seconded  by  Mrs.  Clive  (171 1- 
85),  Mrs.  Gibber  (1714-66),  and  Mrs.  Pritchard 
(171 1-68).  Mrs.  Gibber  as  Constance  in  'King  John,' 
and  Mrs.  Pritchard  in  Lady  Macbeth,  excited  some- 
thing of  the  same  enthusiasm  as  Garrick  in  Richard  HI 
and  Lear.  There  were,  too,  contemporary.critics  who 
judged  rival  actors  to  show  in  certain  parts  powers 
equal,  if  not  superior,  to  those  of  Garrick.  Charles 
Macklin  (1697  .'*-i797)  for  nearly  half  a  century,  from 


POSTHUMOUS    REPUTATION  337 

1735  to  1785,  gave  many  hundred  performances  of  a 
masterly  rendering  of  Shylock.  The  character  had, 
for  many  years  previous  to  MackHn's  assumption  of  it, 
been  allotted  to  comic  actors,  but  Macklin  effectively 
concentrated  his  energy  on  the  tragic  significance  of 
the  part  with  an  effect  that  Garrick  could  not  surpass. 
Macklin  was  also  reckoned  successful  in  Polonius  and 
lago.  John  Henderson,  the  Bath  Roscius  (1747-85), 
who,  like  Garrick,  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
derived  immense  popularity  from  his  representation 
of  Falstaff ;  while  in  subordinate  characters  like 
Mercutio,  Slender,  Jaques,  Touchstone,  and  Sir  Toby 
Belch,  John  Palmer  (1742?-!  798)  was  held  to  ap- 
proach perfection.  But  Garrick  was  the  accredited 
chief  of  the  theatrical  profession  until  his  death.  He 
was  then  succeeded  in  his  place  of  predominance  by 
John  Philip  Kemble,  who  derived  invaluable  support 
from  his  association  with  one  abler  than  himself, 
his  sister,  Mrs.  Siddons. 

Somewhat  stilted  and  declamatory  in  speech, 
Kemble  enacted  a  wide  range  of  characters  of 
John  Shakespearean  tragedy  with  a  dignitv  that 

^^'''P  won   the    admiration    of    Pitt,    Sir   Walter 

Kemble,  ' 

1757-1823.  Scott,  Charles  Lamb,  and  Leigh  Hunt. 
Coriolanus  was  regarded  as  his  masterpiece,  but  his 
renderings  of  Hamlet,  King  John,  Wolsey,  the  Duke  in 
'  Measure  for  Measure,'  Leontes,  and  Brutus  satisfied 
Mrs  Sarah  ^^^  Hiost  exacting  canons  of  contemporary 
Siddons,  theatrical  criticism.  Kemble's  sister,  Mrs. 
1755-1  31-  Siddons,  was  the  greatest  actress  that  Shake- 
speare's countrymen   have   known.     Her  noble  and 


338  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

awe-inspiring  presentation  of  Lady  Macbeth,  her 
Constance,  her  Queen  Katharine,  have,  according  to 
the  best  testimony,  not  been  equalled  even  by  the 
achievements  of  the  eminent  actresses  of  France. 

During  the  present  century  the  most  conspicuous 
histrionic  successes  in  Shakespearean  drama  have 
„,       ,      been    won    by   Edmund    Kean,    whose    tri- 

Edmund  -'  ' 

Kean,  umphant  rendering  of  Shylock  on  his  first  ap- 

17  7-1  33-  pearance  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre  on  January 
26,  1 8 14,  is  one  of  the  most  stirring  incidents  in  the 
history  of  the  English  stage.  Kean  defied  the  rigid 
convention  of  the  'Kemble  School,'  and  gave  free  rein 
to  his  impetuous  passions.  Besides  Shylock,  he  ex- 
celled in  Richard  III,  Othello,  Hamlet,  and  Lear.  No 
less  a  critic  than  Coleridge  declared  that  to  see  him 
act  was  like  '  reading  Shakespeare  by  flashes  of 
lightning.'  Among  other  Shakespearean  actors  of 
Kean's  period  a  high  place  was  allotted  by  public 
esteem  to  George  Frederick  Cooke  (1756-18 11),  whose 
Richard  III,  first  given  in  London  at  Covent  Garden 
Theatre,  October  31,  1801,  was  accounted  his  master- 
piece. Charles  Lamb,  writing  in  1822,  declared  that 
of  all  the  actors  who  flourished  in  his  time,  Robert 
Bensley  '  had  most  of  the  swell  of  soul,'  and  Lamb 
gave  with  a  fine  enthusiasm  in  his  '  Essays  of  Elia ' 
an  analysis  (which  has  become  classical)  of  Bensley's 
performance  of  Malvolio.  But  Bensley's  powers  were 
rated  more  moderately  by  more  experienced  play- 
goers.^ Lamb's  praises  of  Mrs.  Jordan  (1762-18 16) 
in  Ophelia,  Helena,  and  Viola  in  'Twelfth  Night,'  are 

^  Essays  of  Elia,  ed.  Canon  Ainger,  pp.  i8o  seq. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  339 

corroborated  by  the  eulogies  of  Hazlitt  and  Leigh 
Hunt.  In  the  part  of  Rosalind  Mrs.  Jordan  is  re- 
ported on  all  sides  to  have  beaten  Mrs.  Siddons  out 
of  the  field. 

The  torch  thus  lit  by  Garrick,  by  the  Kembles,  and 
by  Kean  and  his  contemporaries  was  worthily  kept 
alive  by  William  Charles  Macready,  a  cultivated  and 
conscientious  actor,  who,  during  a  professional  career 
William  of  morc  than  forty  years  (1810-51),  as- 
Macreadv  sumed  every  great  part  in  Shakespearean 
1793-1873.  tragedy.  Although  Macready  lacked  the 
classical  bearing  of  Kemble  or  the  intense  passion  of 
Kean,  he  won  as  the  interpreter  of  Shakespeare  the 
whole-hearted  suffrages  of  the  educated  public.  Mac- 
ready's  chief  associate  in  women  characters  was  Helen 
Faucit  (afterward  Lady  Martin),  whose  refined  imper- 
sonations of  Imogen,  Beatrice,  Juliet,  and  Rosalind 
form  an  attractive  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  stage. 

The  most  notable  tribute  paid  to  Shakespeare 
by  any  actor-manager  of  recent  times  was  paid  by 
Samuel  Phelps  (1804-78),  who  gave  during  his 
Recent  tenure  of  Sadler's  Wells  Theatre  between 
revivals.  1844  and  1 862  competent  representations  of 
all  the  plays  save  '  Troilus  and  Cressida,'  and  'Titus 
Andronicus.'  Sir  Henry  Irving,  who  since  1878  has 
been  ably  seconded  by  Miss  Ellen  Terry,  has  revived 
at  the  Lyceum  Theatre  between  1874  and  the  present 
time  eleven  plays  ('  Hamlet,'  '  Macbeth,'  '  Othello,' 
'  Richard  III,'  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  '  Much  Ado 
about  Nothing,'  'Twelfth  Night,'  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,' 
'King  Lear,'  'Henry  VIII,'  and  '  Cymbeline '),  and 


340  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

has  given  each  of  them  all  the  advantage  they  can 
derive  from  thoughtful  acting  as  well  as  from  lavish 
scenic  elaboration.^  But  theatrical  revivals  of  plays 
of  Shakespeare  are  in  England  intermittent,  and  no 
theatrical  manager  since  Phelps's  retirement  has 
sought  systematically  to  illustrate  on  the  stage  the 
full  range  of  Shakespearean  drama.  Far  more  in 
this  direction  has  been  attempted  in  Germany.'-^ 
In  one  respect  the  history  of  recent  Shakespearean 
representations  can  be  viewed  by  the  literary  student 
with  unqualified  satisfaction.  Although  some  changes 
of  text  or  some  rearrangement  of  the  scenes  are  found 
imperative  in  all  theatrical  representations  of  Shake- 
speare, a  growing  public  sentiment  in  England  and 
elsewhere  has  for  many  years  favoured  as  loyal  an 
adherence  to  the  authorised  version  of  the  plays  as 
is  practicable  on  the  part  of  theatrical  managers ;  and 
the  evil  traditions  of  the  stage  which  sanctioned  the 
perversions  of  the  eighteenth  century  are  happily 
well-nigh  extinct. 

Music  and  art  in  England  owe  much  to  Shake- 
speare's influence.  From  Thomas  Morley,  Purcell, 
In  music  Matthew  Locke,  and  Arne  to  William 
and  art.  Liulcy,  Sir  Henry  Bishop,  and  Sir  Arthur 
Sullivan,  every  distinguished  musician  has  sought  to 
improve  on  his  predecessor's  setting  of  one  or  more 
of  Shakespeare's  songs,  or  has  composed  concerted 

1  Hamlet  in  1 874-5  and  Macbeth  in  18S8-9  were  each  performed  by 
Sir  Henry  Irving  for  200  nights  in  uninterrupted  succession;  these  are 
the  longest  continuous  runs  that  any  of  Shakespeare's  plays  are  known 
to  have  enjoyed.  -  See  p.  346. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  34 1 

music  in  illustration  of  some  of  his  dramatic  themes.^ 
In  art,  the  publisher  John  Boydell  organised  in  1787 
a  scheme  for  illustrating  scenes  in  Shakespeare's 
work  by  the  greatest  living  English  artists.  Some 
fine  pictures  were  the  result.  A  hundred  and  sixty- 
eight  were  painted  in  all,  and  the  artists  whom 
Boydell  employed  included  Sir  Joseph  Reynolds, 
George  Romney,  Thomas  Stothard,  John  Opie, 
Benjamin  West,  James  Barry,  and  Henry  Fuseli. 
All  the  pictures  were  exhibited  from  time  to  time, 
between  1789  and  1804,  at  a  gallery  specially  built 
for  the  purpose  in  Pall  Mall,  and  in  1802  Boydell 
published  a  collection  of  engravings  of  the  chief 
pictures.  The  great  series  of  paintings  was  dispersed 
by  auction  in  1805.  Few  eminent  artists  of  later 
date,  from  Daniel  Maclise  to  Sir  John  Millais,  have 
lacked  the  ambition  to  interpret  some  scene  or  char- 
acter of  Shakespearean  drama. 

In  America  no  less  enthusiasm  for  Shakespeare 
has  been  manifested  than  in  England.  Editors  and 
In  Amer-  critics  are  hardly  less  numerous  there,  and 
"=^-  some  criticism  from  American  pens,  like  that 

of  James  Russell  Lowell,  has  reached  the  highest 
literary  level.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  has  more  labour 
been  devoted  to  the  study  of  his  works  than  that 
given  by  Mr.  H.  H.  Furness  of  Philadelphia  to  the 
preparation  of  his  '  New  Variorum '  edition.  The 
Barton  collection  of  Shakespeareana  in  the  Boston 
Public  Library  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  extant, 
and  the  elaborate  catalogue  (1878-80)  contains  some 

^  Cf.  Alfred  Roffe,  Shakspere  Music,  1878;  Songs  in  Shakspere 
,  .  .  set  to  Altisic,  1884,  New  Shakspere  Society. 


342  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

2,500  entries.  First  of  Shakespeare's  plays  to  be 
represented  in  America,  '  Richard  III '  was  performed 
in  New  York  in  March  1750.  More  recently  Edwin 
Forrest,  Junius  Brutus  Booth,  Edwin  Booth,  Charlotte 
Cushman,  and  Miss  Ada  Rehan  have  maintained  on 
the  American  stage  the  great  traditions  of  Shake- 
spearean acting  ;  while  Mr.  E.  A.  Abbey  has  devoted 
high  artistic  gifts  to  pictorial  representation  of  scenes 
from  the  plays. 

The  Bible,  alone  of  literary  compositions,  has  been 
translated  more  frequently  or  into  a  greater  number 
Transia-  of  languages  than  the  works  of  Shakespeare, 
tions.  ^Yhe  progress  of  his  reputation  in  Germany, 

France,  Italy,  and  Russia  was  somewhat  slow  at  the 
outset.  But  in  Germany  the  poet  has  received  for 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half  a  recognition  scarcely  less 
pronounced  than  that  accorded  him  in  America  and  in 
his  own  country.  Three  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  now 
In  Ger-  in  the  Zurich  Library,  were  brought  thither 
many.  by  J.  R.  Hcss  from  England  in  1614.   Asearly 

as  1626 'Hamlet,' 'King  Lear,' and  'Romeo  and  Juliet' 
were  acted  at  Dresden,  and  a  version  of  '  The  Taming 
of  The  Shrew  '  was  played  there  and  elsewhere  at  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  But  such  mention 
of  Shakespeare  as  is  found  in  German  literature 
between  1640  and  1740  only  indicates  a  knowledge 
on  the  part  of  German  readers  either  of  Dryden's 
criticisms  or  of  the  accounts  of  him  printed  in  English 
encyclopaedias.^    The  earliest  sign  of  a  direct  acquaint- 

^  Cf.  D.  G.  Morhoff,  Unte7-richt  von  der  teutschen  Sprache  und 
Poesie,  Kiel,  1682,  p.  250. 


POSTHUMOUS  REPUTATION  343 

ance  with  the  plays  is  a  poor  translation  of  'Julius 
Caesar '  into  German  by  Baron  C.  VV.  von  Borck, 
formerly  Prussian  minister  in  London,  which  was  pub- 
lished at  Berlin  in  174 1.  A  worse  rendering  of  '  Romeo 
and  Juliet'  followed  in  1758.  Meanwhile  J.  C.  Gott- 
sched  (1700-66),  an  influential  man  of  letters,  warmly 
denounced  Shakespeare  in  a  review  of  Von  Borck's 
effort  in  '  Beitrage  zur  deutschen  Sprache '  and  else- 
where. Lessing  came  without  delay  to  Shakespeare's 
rescue,  and  set  his  reputation,  in  the  estimation  of  the 
German  public,  on  that  exalted  pedestal  which  it  has 
not  ceased  to  occupy.  It  was  in  1759,  in  a  journal 
entitled  '  Litteraturbriefe,'  that  Lessing  first  claimed 
for  Shakespeare  superiority,  not  only  to  the  French 
dramatists  Racine  and  Corneille,  who  hitherto  had 
dominated  European  taste,  but  to  all  ancient  or 
modern  poets.  Lessing's  doctrine,  which  he  devel- 
oped in  his  '  Hamburgische  Dramaturgie  '  (Hamburg, 
1767,  2  vols.  8vo),  was  at  once  accepted  by  the  poet 
Johann  Gottfried  Herder  in  the  '.Blatter  von  deutschen 
Art  und  Kunst,'  1771.  Christopher  Martin  Wieland 
(1733-18 1 3)  in  1762  began  a  prose  translation  which 
Johann  Joachim  Eschenburg  (i  743-1820)  completed 
(Zurich,  13  vols.,  1775-84).  Between  1797  and  1833 
there  appeared  at  intervals  the  classical  German  ren- 
dering by  August  Wilhelm  von  Schlegel  and  Lud- 
^  wig  Tieck,  leaders  of  the  romantic  school  of 

transia-        German  literature,  whose  creed  embodied,  as 
one  of  its  first  articles,  an  unwavering  venera- 
tion for  Shakespeare.    Schlegel  translated  only  seven- 
teen plays,  and  his  workmanship  excels  that  of  the 


344  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

rest  of  the  translation.  Tieck's  part  in  the  under- 
taking was  mainly  confined  to  editing  translations  by 
various  hands.  Many  other  German  translations  in 
verse  were  undertaken  during  the  same  period,  —  by 
J.  H.  Voss  and  his  sons  (Leipzig,  1818-29),  by  J.  W. 
O.  Benda  (Leipzig,  1825-6),  by  J.  Korner  (Vienna, 
1836),  by  A.  Bottger  (Leipzig,  1836-7),  by  E.  Ortlepp 
(Stuttgart,  1838-9),  and  by  A.  Keller  and  M.  Rapp 
(Stuttgart,  1843-6).  The  best  of  more  recent  German 
translations  is  that  by  a  band  of  poets  and  eminent  men 
of  letters,  including  Friedrich  von  Bodenstedt,  Ferdi- 
nand Freiligrath,  and  Paul  Heyse( Leipzig,  1867-71,  38 
vols.).  Most  of  these  versions  have  been  many  times 
reissued,  but,  despite  the  high  merits  of  Von  Bodenstedt 
and  his  companions'  performance,  Schlegel  and  Tieck's 
achievement  still  holds  the  field.  Schlegel's  lectures  on 
'Shakespeare  and  the  Drama,'  which  were  delivered 
at  Vienna  in  1808,  and  were  translated  into  English 
in  18 1 5,  are  worthy  of  comparison  with  those  of  Cole- 
ridge, who  owed  much  to  their  influence.  Wordsworth 
in  181 5  declared  that  Schlegel  and  his  disciples  first 
marked  out  the  right  road  in  aesthetic  criticism,  and 
enjoyed  at  the  moment  superiority  over  all  English 
aesthetic  critics  of  Shakespeare.^  Subsequently  Goethe 

1  In  his  '  Essay  Supplementary  to  the  Preface  '  in  the  edition  of  his 
Poe»is  of  1815,' Wordsworth  wrote:  'The  Germans  only,  of  foreign 
nations,  are  approaching  towards  a  knowledge  of  what  he  [/.«•.  Shake- 
speare] is.  In  some  respects  they  have  acquired  a  superiority  over  the 
fello\\  -countrymen  of  the  poet ;  for  among  us,  it  is  a  common  —  1  might 
say  an  established  —  opinion  that  Shakespeare  is  justly  praised  when  he  is 
pronounced  to  be  "  a  wild  irregular  genius  in  whom  great  faults  are  com- 
pensated by  great  beauties."  How  long  may  it  be  before  this  misconcep- 
tion passes  away  and  it  becomes  universally  acknowledged  that  the  judg- 
ment of  Shakespeare  .  .  .  is  not  less  admirable  than  his  imagination?  .  ^.' 


POSTHUMOUS    REPUTATION  345 

poured  forth,  in  his  vohiminous  writings,  a  mass  of 
criticism  even  more  ilknninating  and  appreciative 
than  Schlegel's.^  Although  Goethe  deemed  Shake- 
speare's works  unsuited  to  the  stage,-  he  adapted 
'  Romeo  and  JuHet '  for  the  Weimar  Theatre,  while 
Schiller  prepared  '  Macbeth  '  (Stuttgart,  1801 ).  Heine 
published  in  1838  charming  studies  of  Shakespeare's 
heroines(English  translation  1895),  and  acknowledged 
only  one  defect  in  Shakespeare  —  that  he  was  an 
Englishman. 

During  the  last  half-century  textual,  aesthetic,  and 
biographical  criticism  has  been  pursued  in  Germany 
with  unflagging  industry  and  energy ;  and  although 
laboured  and  supersubtle  theorising  characterises 
much  German  aesthetic  criticism,  its  mass  and  variety 
testify  to  the  impressiveness  of  the  appeal  that  Shake- 
Modern  speare's  work  has  made  to  the  German 
German       intellect.    The  vain  effort  to  stem  the  current 

writers  on 

Shake-  of  Shakespearean  worship  made  by  the 
speare.  dramatist,].  R.  Benedix,  in  '  Die  Shakespearo- 
manie  '  (Stuttgart,  1873,  8vo),  stands  practically  alone. 
In  studies  of  the  text  and  metre  Nikolaus  Delius 
(1813-88)  should,  among  recent  German  writers,  be 
accorded  the  first  place  ;  in  studies  of  the  biography 
and  stage  history  Friedrich  Karl  Elze  (1821-89); 
in  aesthetic  studies  Friedrich  Alexander  Theodor 
Kreyssig  (1818-79),  author  of  '  Vorlesungen  Uber 
Shakespeare  '  (Berlin,  1858  and  1874),  and  '  Shake- 
speare-Fragen '  (Leipzig,  1871).  Ulrici's  'Shake- 
speare's Dramatic  Art  '  (first  published  at  Halle  in 

1  Cf.   Wilhelm  Meisier. 


346  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

1839)  and  Gervinus's  Commentaries  (first  published 
at  Leipzig  in  1848-9),  both  of  which  are  famiUar  in 
English  translations,  are  suggestive  but  unconvincing 
aesthetic  interpretations.  The  German  Shakespeare 
Society,  which  was  founded  at  Weimar  in  1865,  has 
published  thirty-four  year-books  (edited  successively 
by  Von  Bodenstedt,  Delius,  Elze,  and  F.  A.  Leo); 
each  contains  useful  contributions  to  Shakespearean 
study. 

Shakespeare  has  been  no  less  effectually  nation- 
alised on  the  German  stage.  The  three  great  actors  — 
OntheGer-  Frederick  Ulrich  Ludwig  Schroeder  (1744- 
man  stage.  1 8 1 6)  of  Hamburg,  Ludwig  Devrient  ( 1 784- 
1832),  and  his  nephew  Gustav  Emil  Devrient  (1803- 
72)  —  largely  derived  their  fame  from  their  suc- 
cessful assumptions  of  Shakespearean  characters. 
Another  of  Ludwig  Devrient' s  nephews,  Eduard 
(1801-77),  ^Iso  an  actor,  prepared,  with  his  son 
Otto,  an  acting  German  edition  (Leipzig,  1873  and 
following  years).  An  acting  edition  by  Wilhelm 
Oechelhaeuser  appeared  previously  at  Berlin  in  1871. 
Twenty-eight  of  the  thirty-seven  plays  assigned  to 
Shakespeare  are  now  on  recognised  lists  of  German 
acting  plays,  including  all  the  histories.^  In  1895 
as  many  as  706  performances  of  twenty-five  of 
Shakespeare's  plays  were  given  in  German  theatres.^ 
In  1896  no  fewer  than  910  performances  were  given  of 
twenty-three  plays.  In  1897  performances  of  twenty- 
four  plays  reached  a  total  of  930  —  an  average  of 

1  a.  Jahrhiich  der  Deutsche  Shakespeare- Geselhchaft  for  1894. 

2  lb.  for  1896,  p.  438. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  347 

nearly  three  Shakespearean  representations  a  day  in 
the  German-speaking  districts  of  Europe.  ^  It  is 
not  only  in  capitals  like  Berlin  and  Vienna  that  the 
representations  are  frequent  and  popular.  In  towns 
like  Altona,  Breslau,  Frankfort-on-the-Maine,  Ham- 
burg, Magdeburg,  and  Rostock,  Shakespeare  is  acted 
constantly  and  the  greater  number  of  his  dramas  is 
regularly  kept  in  rehearsal.  'Othello,'  'Hamlet,' 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  and  '  The  Taming  of  The  Shrew  ' 
usually  prove  most  attractive.  Of  the  many  German 
musical  composers  who  have  worked  on  Shakespear- 
ean themes,  Mendelssohn  (in  '  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  '),  Schumann,  and  Franz  Schubert  (in  setting 
separate  songs)  have  achieved  the  greatest  success. 

In  France  Shakespeare  won  recognition  after  a 

longer  struggle  than  in  Germany.     Cyrano  de  Ber- 

gerac    (1619-55)    plagiarised    '  Cymbeline,' 

'  Hamlet,'  and  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice ' 

in  his  'Agrippina.'     About   1680   Nicolas    Clement, 

Louis  XIV's  librarian,  allowed  Shakespeare  imagina- 

1  The  exact  statistics  for  1896  and  1897  were:  'Othello,'  acted 
135  and  121  times  for  the  respective  years;  'Hamlet,'  102  and  91; 
'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  95  and  118;  'Taming  of  The  Shrew,'  91  and  92; 
'The  Merchant  of  Venice,'  84  and  62;  'A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,' 
68  and  92;  'A  Winter's  Tale,'  49  and  65;  '  Much  Ado  about  Nothing,' 
47  and  32;  'Lear,'  41  and  34;  'As  You  Like  It,'  37  and  29; 
'Comedy  of  Errors,'  29  and  43;  'Julius  Caesar,'  27  and  29;  'Mac- 
beth,' 10  and  12;  'Timon  of  Athens,'  7  and  o;  'The  Tempest,'  5 
and  I;  'Antony  and  Cleopatra,'  2  and  4;  '  Coriolanus,'  o  and  20; 
'Cymbeline,'  o  and  4;  'Richard  II,'  15  and  5;  'Henry  IV,'  Part  I, 
26  and  23,  Part  II,  6  and  13;  '  Henry  V,'  4  and  7;  'Henry  VI,'  Part 
I,  3  and  5,  Part  II,  2  and  2;  '  Richard  III,'  25  and  26  (^Jahrhuch  der 
Deutsche  Skakespeare-Gesdlschaft  for  1897,  pp.  306  seq.,  and  fcir  1898, 
pp.  440  seq.). 


348  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

tion,  natural  thoughts,  and  ingenious  expression,  but 
deplored  his  obscenity.^  Half  a  century  elapsed  before 
public  attention  in  France  was  again  directed  to  Shake- 
speare.^ The  Abbe  Prevost,  in  his  periodical  'Le 
Pour  et  Contre  '  (1733  seq.),  acknowledged  his  power. 
But  it  is  to  Voltaire  that  his  countrymen  owe,  as  he  him- 
self boasted,  their  first  effective  introduction  to  Shake- 
speare. Voltaire  studied  Shakespeare  thoroughly  on 
his  visit  to  England  between  1 726  and  1 729,  and  his 
influence  is  visible  in  his  own  dramas.  In  his  'Lettres 
Philosophiqucs'  ( 1 73 1 ),  afterwards  reissued  as  *  Lettres 
sur  les  Anglais,'  1734  (Nos.  xviii.  and  xix.),  and  in 
his  '  Lettre  sur  la  Tragedie '  (1731),  he  expressed 
admiration  for  Shakespeare's  genius,  but  attacked  his 
Voltaire's  Want  of  tastc  and  art.  He  described  him  as 
strictures.  <  |g  Comeille  de  Londres,  grand  fou  d'ailleurs, 
mais  il  a  des  morceaux  admirables.'  Writing  to  the 
Abbe  des  Fontaines  in  November  1735,  Voltaire  ad- 
mitted many  merits  in  'Julius  Caesar,'  on  which  he 
published  '  Observations'  in  1764.  Johnson  replied  to 
Voltaire's  general  criticism  in  the  preface  to  his  edition 
(1765),  and  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Montagu  in  1769  in  a  sepa- 
rate volume,  which  was  translated  into  French  in 
1777.  Diderot  made,  in  his  'Encyclopedic,'  the  first 
stand  in  France  against  the  Voltairean  position,  and 
increased  opportunities  of  studying  Shakespeare's 
works  increased  the  poet's  vogue.  Twelve  plays 
were  translated  in  De  La  Place's  'Theatre  Anglais' 

^  Jusserand,  A  French  Ambassador,  p.  56. 

^  Cf.    Al.    Schmidt,     Voltaire's    Verdienst    von    der   Einfiihrung 
Shakespeares  in  Frankreich,  Konigsberg,  1864. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  349 

(1745-8).  Jean-Frangois  Ducis  ( 1733-18 16)  adapted 
without  much  insight  six  plays  for  the  French  stage, 
beginning  in  1769  with  '  Hamlet,'  his  version  of  which 
was  acted  with  applause.  In  1776  Pierre  Le  Tourneur 
began  a  bad  prose  translation  (completed  in  1782)  of  all 
Shakespeare's  plays,  and  declared  him  to  be  'the  god 
of  the  theatre.'  Voltaire  protested  against  this  esti- 
mate in  a  new  remonstrance  consisting  of  two  letters, 
of  which  the  first  was  read  before  the  French  Acad- 
emy on  August  25,  1776.  Here  Shakespeare  was 
described  as  a  barbarian,  whose  works  — '  a  huge 
dunghill '  —  concealed  some  pearls. 

Although  Voltaire's  censure  was  rejected  by  the 
majority  of  later  French  critics,  it  expressed  a  senti- 
ment born  of  the  genius  of  the  nation,  and  made  an 
impression  that  was  only  gradually  effaced.  Mar- 
montel,  La  Harpe,  Marie  Joseph  Chenier,  and  Chateau- 
briand, in  his  '  Essai  sur  Shakespeare,'  1801,  inclined 
French  to  Voltaire's  view ;  but  Madame  de  Stael 
'^'raduai  wrote  effectively  on  the  other  side  in  her 
emancipa-  '  Dc  la  Litterature,'  1804  (i.  caps.  13,  14,  ii. 
VoUa'irean  5)'  '  ^^  ^^'^^  d^y,'  wrotc  Wordsworth  in 
influence.  1 8 1 5,  '  the  French  critics  have  abated  nothing 
of  their  aversion  to  "this  darling  of  our  nation."  "The 
English  with  their  bouffon  de  Shakespeare "  is  as 
familiar  an  expression  among  them  as  in  the  time  of 
Voltaire.  Baron  Grimm  is  the  only  French  writer 
who  seems  to  have  perceived  his  infinite  superiority 
to  the  first  names  of  the  French  theatre,  —  an  advan- 
tage which  the  Parisian  critic  owed  to  his  German 


350  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

blood  and  German  education.' ^  The  revision  of  Le 
Tourneur's  translation  by  Francois  Guizot  and  A. 
Pichot  in  1821  gave  Shakespeare  a  fresh  advantage. 
Paul  Duport,  in  '  Essais  Litteraires  sur  Shakespeare ' 
(Paris,  1828,  2  vols.),  was  the  last  French  critic  of 
repute  to  repeat  Voltaire's  censure  unreservedly. 
Guizot,  in  his  '  Sur  la  Vie  et  les  CEuvres  de  Shake- 
speare '  (reprinted  separately  from  the  translation  of 
1821),  as  well  as  in  his  '  Shakespeare  et  son  Temps  ' 
(1852);  Villemain  in  a  general  essay,^  and  Barante  in 
a  study  of  '  Hamlet,'  ^  acknowledged  the  mightiness  of 
Shakespeare's  genius  with  comparatively  few  qualifi- 
cations. Other  complete  translations  followed  —  by 
Francisque  Michel  (1839),  by  Benjamin  Laroche 
(185 1 ),  and  by  Emil  Montegut  (1867);  but  the  best 
is  that  in  prose  by  Francois  Victor  Hugo  (1859-66), 
whose  father,  Victor  Hugo  the  poet,  published  a 
rhapsodical  eulogy  in  1 864.  Alfred  Mezieres's  '  Shake- 
speare, ses  CEuvres  et  ses  Critiques'  (Paris,  i860), 
is  a  saner  appreciation. 

Meanwhile  'Hamlet'  and  'Macbeth,'  'Othello' 
and  a  few  other  Shakespearean  plays,  became  stock 
On  th  pieces  on  the  French  stage.    A  powerful  im- 

French  petus  to  theatrical  representation  of  Shake- 
^  ^^^'  speare  in  France  was  given  by  the  perf orm- 

1  Frederic  Melchior,  Baron  Grimm  (i  723-1 807),  for  some  years  a 
friend  of  Rousseau  and  the  correspondent  of  Diderot  and  the  encyclo- 
pedistes,  scattered  many  appreciative  references  to  Shakespeare  in  his 
voluminous  Correspondance  Litteraire  Philosophique  et  Critique,  extend- 
ing over  the  period  1753-70,  the  greater  part  of  which  was  pubhshed 
in  16  vols.  1812-13. 

^  Melanges  Historiques,  1S27,  iii.  141-87. 

3  Ibid.  1824,  iii.  217-34. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  35  I 

ance  in  Paris  of  the  chief  plays  by  a  strong  company 
of  English  actors  in  the  autumn  of  1827.  '  Hamlet' 
and  '  Othello '  were  acted  successively  by  Charles 
Kemble  and  Macready ;  Edmund  Kean  appeared 
as  Richard  III,  Othello,  and  Shylock ;  Miss  Smith- 
son,  who  became  the  wife  of  Hector  Berlioz  the  musi- 
cian, filled  the  roles  of  Ophelia,  Juliet,  Desdemona, 
Cordelia,  and  Portia.  French  critics  were  divided  as 
to  the  merits  of  the  performers,  but  most  of  them 
were  enthusiastic  in  their  commendations  of  the  plays. ^ 
Alfred  de  Vigny  prepared  a  version  of  '  Othello  '  for 
the  Theatre-Fran^ais  in  1829  with  eminent  success. 
An  adaptation  of  '  Hamlet '  by  Alexandre  Dumas 
was  first  performed  in  1847,  and  a  rendering  by  the 
Chevalier  de  Chatelain  (1864)  was  often  repeated. 
George  Sand  translated 'As  You  Like  It  '(Paris,  1856) 
for  representation  by  the  Comedie  Frangaise  on 
April  12,  1856.  'Lady  Macbeth'  has  been  repre- 
sented in  recent  years  by  Madame  Sarah  Bernhardt, 
and  '  Hamlet '  by  M.  Mounet-Sully  of  the  Theatre- 
Fran^ais.^  Four  French  musicians  —  Berlioz  in  his 
symphony  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  Gounod  in  his 
opera  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  Ambroise  Thomas 
in  his  opera  of  '  Hamlet,'  and  Saint-Saens  in  his 
opera  of  'Henry  VIII'  —  have  sought  with  public 

1  Very  interesting  comments  on  these  performances  appeared  day 
by  day  in  the  Paris  newspaper  La  Globe.  They  were  by  Charles  Magnin, 
who  reprinted  them  in  his  Causeries  et  Meditations  Historiques  et 
Litteraires  (Paris,  1843,  ii-  62  seq.). 

-  Cf.  Lacroix,  Hisloire  de  P lufiuence  de  Shakespeare  sur  le  Theatre 
Franfais,  1867;  Edinburgh  Review,  1849,  PP-  39~77;  Elze,  Essays, 
pp.  193  seq.;  M.  Jusserand,  Shakespeare  en  France  sous  I'Aucien 
Regime,  Paris,  1898. 


352  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

approval   to    interpret    musically  portions  of  Shake- 
speare's work. 

In  Italy  Shakespeare  was  little  known  before  the 
present  century.     Such  references  as  eighteenth-cen- 
tury Italian  writers  made  to  him  were  based 

In  Italy.  "' 

on  remarks  by  Voltaire.^  The  French  adap- 
tation of  '  Hamlet '  by  Ducis  was  issued  in  Italian 
blank  verse  (Venice,  1774,  8vo).  Complete  trans- 
lations of  all  the  plays  made  direct  from  the  English 
were  issued  by  Michele  Leoni  in  verse  at  Verona, 
1819-22,  and  by  Carlo  Rusconi  in  prose  at  Padua 
in  1831  (new  edit.  Turin,  1858-9).  'Othello'  and 
'  Romeo  and  Juliet '  have  been  very  often  translated 
into  Italian  separately.  The  Italian  actors,  Madame 
Ristori  (as  Lady  Macbeth),  Salvini  (as  Othello),  and 
Rossi  rank  among  Shakespeare's  most  effective  inter- 
preters. Verdi's  operas  on  Macbeth,  Othello,  and 
Falstaff  (the  last  two  with  libretti  by  Boito)  betray 
a  close  and  appreciative  study  of  Shakespeare. 

Two  complete  translations  have  been  published  in 
Dutch  :  one  in  prose  by  A.  S.  Kok  (Amsterdam,  1873- 

80),  the  other  in  verse  by  Dr.  L.  A.  T.  Bur- 
in Holland.  '     ,..,      .-,.  ,  ««        /  ,      X 

gersdijk  (Leyden,  1884-8,  12  vols.) 

In    Eastern    Europe,    Shakespeare    first    became 

known    through    French    and    German    translations. 

Into  Russian  '  Romeo  and  Juliet '  was  translated  in 

1772,   'Richard  III'  in   1783,  and  'Julius  Caesar'  in 

1786.    Sumarakow  translated  Ducis's  version 

In  Russia.         ,       t  t         i       .    •  r^        r 

of     Hamlet     in    1784    tor    stage    purposes, 

^  Cf.  Giovanni    Andres,  DelP    Origine   Progressi  e  Stato  attuale 
W  ogni  Letter atur a,  1 782. 


POSTHUMOUS   REPUTATION  353 

while  the  Empress  Catherine  II  adapted  the  '  Merry 
Wives '  and  '  King  John.'  Numerous  versions  of  all 
the  chief  plays  followed  ;  and  in  1865  there  appeared 
at  St.  Petersburg  the  best  translation  in  verse  (direct 
from  the  English),  by  Nekrasow  and  Gerbel.  A  prose 
translation,  by  N.  Ketzcher,  begun  in  1862,  was  com- 
pleted in  1879.  Gerbel  issued  a  Russian  translation 
of  the  'Sonnets'  in  1880,  and  many  critical  essays  in 
the  language,  original  or  translated,  have  been  pub- 
lished. Almost  every  play  has  been  represented  in 
Russian  on  the  Russian  stage. ^ 

A  Polish  version  of  '  Hamlet '  was  acted  at  Lem- 

berg  in   1797;    and  as    many  as  sixteen  plays    now 

hold  a  recognised  place  among  Polish  acting 

In  Poland.        ,  _,   *  ,       1    -r,    ,.    ,  -,      . 

plays.  The  standard  Polish  translation  of 
Shakespeare's  collected  works  appeared  at  Warsaw 
in  1875  (edited  by  the  Polish  poet  Kraszewski),  and 
is  reckoned  among  the  most  successful  renderings  in 
a  foreign  tongue. 

In  Hungary,  Shakespeare's  greatest  w^orks  have 
since  the  beginning  of  the  century  been  highly 
In  Hun-  appreciated  by  students  and  by  playgoers, 
gary.  j^    Complete     translation     into     Hungarian 

appeared  at  Kaschau  in  1824.  At  the  National 
Theatre  at  Budapest  no  less  than  twenty-two  plays 
have  been  of  late  years  included  in  the  actors' 
repertory.^ 

1  Cf.  A'if7£'  Shaksp.  Soc.  Trans.  1S80-5,  pt.  ii.  431  seq. 

-  Cf.  Ungarische  Revue  (Budapest)  January  1881,  pp.  81-2;  and 
August  Greguss's  Shakspere  .  .  .  els'o  k'otet :  Shakspere  pdlydja, 
Budapest,  1880  (an  account  in  Hungarian  of  Shakespeare's  Life  and 
Works). 


354  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Other  complete  translations  have  been  published 
in  Bohemian  (Prague,  1874),  in  Swedish  (Lund,  1847- 
in  other  5 1 ),  in  Danish  (1845-50),  and  Finnish 
countries.  (Helsing'fors,  1892-5).  In  Spanish  a  com- 
plete translation  is  in  course  of  publication  (Madrid, 
1885  seq.),  and  the  eminent  Spanish  critic  Menendez 
y  Pelayo  has  set  Shakespeare  above  Calderon.  In 
Armenian,  although  only  three  plays  ('  Hamlet,' 
'Romeo  and  Juliet,'  and  'As  You  Like  It')  have 
been  issued,  the  translation  of  the  whole  is  ready  for 
the  press.  Separate  plays  have  appeared  in  Welsh, 
Portuguese,  Friesic,  Flemish,  Servian  Roumanian, 
Maltese,  Ukrainian,  Wallachian,  Croatian,  modern 
Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew,  and  Japanese;  while  a  few  have 
been  rendered  into  Bengali,  Hindustani,  Marathi,^ 
Gujarati,  Urdu,  Kanarese,  and  other  languages  of 
India,  and  have  been  acted  in  native  theatres. 

1  Cf.  Macmillan^ s  Magazine,  May  1880. 


GENERAL   ESTIMATE  355 


XXI 

GENERAL   ESTIMATE 

No  estimate  of  Shakespeare's  genius  can  be  ad- 
equate. In  knowledge  of  human  character,  in 
General  wealth  of  humour,  in  depth  of  passion,  in 
estimate.  fertility  of  fancy,  and  in  soundness  of  judg- 
ment he  has  no  rival.  It  is  true  of  him,  as  of  no 
other  writer,  that  his  language  and  versification  adapt 
themselves  to  every  phase  of  sentiment,  and  sound 
every  note  in  the  scale  of  felicity.  Some  defects 
are  to  be  acknowledged,  but  they  sink  into  insignifi- 
cance when  measured  by  the  magnitude  of  his 
achievement.  Sudden  transitions,  elliptical  expres- 
sions, mixed  metaphors,  indefensible  verbal  quibbles, 
and  fantastic  conceits  at  times  create  an  atmosphere 
of  obscurity.  The  student  is  perplexed,  too,  by  obso- 
lete words  and  by  some  hopelessly  corrupt  readings. 
But  when  the  whole  of  Shakespeare's  vast  work  is 
scrutinised  with  due  attention,  the  glow  of  his  imagina- 
tion is  seen  to  leave  few  passages  wholly  unillumined. 
Some  of  his  plots  are  hastily  constructed  and  incon- 
sistently developed,  but  the  intensity  of  the  interest 
with  which  he  contrives  to  invest  the  personality  of 
his   heroes   and    heroines  triumphs  over   halting   or 


356  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

digressive  treatment  of  the  story  in  which  they  have 
their  being.  Although  he  was  versed  in  the  techni- 
calities of  stagecraft,  he  occasionally  disregarded  its 
elementary  conditions.  But  the  success  of  his  pre- 
sentments of  human  life  and  character  depended 
little  on  his  manipulation  of  theatrical  machinery. 
His  unassailable  supremacy  springs  from  the  versatile 
working  of  his  insight  and  intellect,  by  virtue  of 
which  his  pen  limned  with  unerring  precision  almost 
every  gradation  of  thought  and  emotion  that  animates 
the  living  stage  of  the  world. 

Shakespeare's  mind,  as  Hazlitt  suggested,  con- 
tained within  itself  the  germs  of  all  faculty  and  feeling. 
He  knew  intuitively  how  every  faculty  and  feeling 
would  develop  in  any  conceivable  change  of  fortune. 
Men  and  women  —  good  or  bad,  old  or  young,  wise 
or  foolish,  merry  or  sad,  rich  or  poor  —  yielded  their 
secrets  to  him,  and  his  genius  enabled  him  to  give 
being  in  his  pages  to  all  the  shapes  of  humanity  that 
present  themselves  on  the  highway  of  life.  Each 
of  his  characters  gives  voice  to  thought  or  passion 
with  an  individuality  and  a  naturalness  that  rouse 
Character  ill  the  intelligent  playgoer  and  reader  the 
of  Shake-     illusion  that  they  are  overhearing  men  and 

speare's  .... 

achieve-  womcu  spcak  unprcmeditatmgly  among 
ment.  themsclvcs,  rather  than  that  they  are  read- 

ing written  speeches  or  hearing  written  speeches 
recited.  The  more  closely  the  words  are  studied, 
the  completer  the  illusion  grows.  Creatures  of  the 
imagination  —  fairies,  ghosts,  witches  —  are  delineated 
with  a  like    potency,   and   the   reader   or   spectator 


GENERAL   ESTIMATE  357 

feels  instinctively  that  these  supernatural  entities 
could  not  speak,  feel,  or  act  otherwise  than  Shake- 
speare represents  them.  The  creative  power  of 
poetry  was  never  manifested  to  such  effect  as  in  the 
corporeal  semblances  in  which  Shakespeare  clad  the 
spirits  of  the  air. 

So  mighty  a  faculty  sets  at  naught  the  common 
limitations  of  nationality,  and  in  every  quarter  of  the 
Its  univer-  S^o^'^  ^^  which  civiliscd  life  has  penetrated 
sal  recogni-  Shakcspcarc's  power  is  recognised.  All  the 
world  over,  language  is  applied  to  his  crea- 
tions that  ordinarily  applies  to  beings  of  flesh  and 
blood.  Hamlet  and  Othello,  Lear  and  Macbeth, 
Falstaff  and  Shylock,  Brutus  and  Romeo,  Ariel  and 
Caliban,  are  studied  in  almost  every  civilised  tongue 
as  if  they  were  historic  personalities,  and  the  chief 
of  the  impressive  phrases  that  fall  from  their  lips  are 
rooted  in  the  speech  of  civilised  humanity.  To 
Shakespeare  the  intellect  of  the  world,  speaking  in 
divers  accents,  applies  with  one  accord  his  own  words  : 
'  How  noble  in  reason  !  how  infinite  in  faculty  !  in 
apprehension  how  like  a  god !  ' 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


THE  SOURCES  OF  BIOGRAPHICAL  KNOWLEDGE 

The  scantiness  of  contemporary  records  of  Shakespeare's  career 
has  been  much  exaggerated.  An  investigation  extending  over 
Contempo-  two  centuries  has  brought  together  a  mass  of  detail 
rary  records  which  far  exceeds  that  accessible  in  the  case  of  any 
abundant,  other  contemporary  professional  writer.  Nevertheless, 
some  important  links  are  missing,  and  at  some  critical  points 
appeal  to  conjecture  is  inevitable.  But  the  fully  ascertained 
facts  are  numerous  enough  to  define  sharply  the  general  direc- 
tion that  Shakespeare's  career  followed.  Although  the  clues 
are  in  some  places  faint,  the  trail  never  altogether  eludes  the 
patient  investigator. 

Fuller,  in  his  'Worthies'  (1662),  attempted  the  first 
biographical  notice  of  Shakespeare,  with  poor  results.  Aubrey, 
Pirst  in  his  gossiping  'Lives  of  Eminent  Men,'^  based  his 

efforts  in  ampler  information  on  reports  communicated  to  him 
biography,  by  William  Beeston  (d.  1682),  an  aged  actor,  whom 
Dryden  called  '  the  chronicle  of  the  stage,'  and  who  was  doubt- 
less in  the  main  a  trustworthy  witness.  A  few  additional  details 
were  recorded  in  the  seventeenth  century  by  the  Rev.  John 
Ward  (1629-1681),  vicar  of  Stratford-on-Avon  from  1662  to 
1668,  in  a  diary  and  memorandum-book   written  between  1661 

^  Compiled  between  1669  and  1696;  first  printed  in  Letters  /rent  the  Bodleian, 
1813,  and  admirably  re-edited  for  the  Clarendon  Press  during  the  present  year  by 
the  Rev.  Andrew  Clark  (2  vols.). 

361 


362  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

and  1663  (ed.  C.  A.  Severn,  1839)  ;  by  the  Rev.  William 
Fulman,  whose  manuscripts  are  at  Corpus  Christ!  College, 
Oxford  (with  valuable  interpolations  made  before  1708  by  the 
Rev.  Richard  Davies,  vicar  of  Saperton,  Gloucestershire)  ;  by 
John  Dowdall,  who  recorded  his  experiences  of  travel  through 
Warwickshire  in  1693  (London,  1838)  ;  and  by  William  Hall, 
who  described  a  visit  to  Stratford  in  1694  (London,  1884,  from 
Hall's  letter  among  the  Bodleian  MSS.).  Phillips  in  his 
*  Theatrum  Poetarum  '  (1675),  and  Langbaine  in  his  'English 
Dramatick  Poets'  (1691),  confined  themselves  to  elementary 
criticism.  In  1709  Nicholas  Rowe  prefixed  a  more  ambitious 
memoir  than  had  yet  been  attempted  to  his  edition  of  the  plays, 
and  embodied  some  hitherto  unrecorded  Stratford  and  London 
traditions  with  which  the  actor  Thomas  Betterton  supplied 
him.  A  little  fresh  gossip  was  collected  by  William  Oldys, 
a^id  was  printed  from  his  manuscript  'Adversaria'  (now  in 
the  British  Museum)  as  an  appendix  to  Yeowell's  '  Memoir  of 
Oldys,'  1862.  Pope.  Johnson,  and  Steevens,  in  the  biographical 
prefaces  to  their  editions,  mainly  repeated  the  narratives  of 
their  predecessor,  Rowe. 

In  the  Prolegomena  to  the  Variorum  editions  of  1803.  1813, 
and  especially  in  that  of  1821  there  was  embodied  a  mass  of 
Biograph-  fresh  information  derived  by  Edmund  Malone  from 
ers  of  the  systematic  researches  among  the  parochial  records 
nineteenth  of  Stratford,  the  manuscripts  accumulated  by  the 
century.  actor  Alleyn  at  Duhvich,  and  ofiicial  papers  of  state 
preserved  in  the  public  offices  in  London  (now  collected  in  the 
Public  Record  Office).  The  available  knowledge  of  Elizabethan 
stage  histoiy  as  well  as  of  Shakespeare's  biography,  was  thus 
greatly  extended.  John  Payne  Collier,  in  his  'History  of 
English  Dramatic  Poetry'  (1831),  in  his  'New  Facts'  about 
Shakespeare  (1835),  '""is  'New  Particulars'  (1836),  and  his 
'  Further  Particulars  '  (1839),  and  in  his  editions  of  Henslowe's 
'Diary'  and  the  'Alleyn  Papers' for  the  Shakespeare  Society, 
while  occasionally  throwing  some  further  light  on  obscure 
places,  foisted  on  Shakespeare's  biography  a  series  of  ingeniously 
forged  documents  which  have  greatly  perplexed  succeeding 
biographers.^  Joseph  Hunter  in  '  New  Illustrations  of  Shake- 
1  See  p.  367-8. 


SOURCES   OF   BIOGRAPHICAL   KNOWLEDGE       363 

speare'  (1845)  and  George  Russell  French's  'Shakespeareana 
Genealogica '  (1869)  occasionally  supplemented  IMalone's  re- 
searches. James  Orchard  Halliwell  (afterwards  Halliwell- 
Phillipps)  printed  separately,  between  1850  and  1884,  in  various 
privately  issued  publications,  all  the  Stratford  archives  and 
extant  legal  documents  bearing  on  Shakespeare's  career,  many 
of  them  for  the  first  time.  In  1881  Halliwell-Phillipps  began  the 
collective  publication  of  materials  for  a  full  biography  in  his 
•  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare ' ;  this  work  was  generously 
enlarged  in  successive  editions  until  it  acquired  massive  propor- 
tions ;  in  the  fourth  and  last  edition  of  1887  it  numbered  near 
1,000  pages.  Mr.  Frederick  Gard  Fleay,  in  his  'Shakespeare 
Manual'  (1876),  in  his  'Life  of  Shakespeare'  (1886),  in  his 
'  History  of  the  Stage'  (1890),  and  his  'Biographical  Chronicle 
of  the  English  Drama'  (1891),  adds  much  useful  information 
respecting  stage  history  and  Shakespeare's  relations  with  his 
fellow-dramatists,  mainly  derived  from  a  study  of  the  original 
editions  of  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  of  his  contemporaries ; 
but  unfortunately  many  of  Mr.  Fleay's  statements  and  conjec- 
tures are  unauthenticated.  For  notices  of  Stratford,  R.  B. 
Wheler's  'History  and  Antiquities'  (1806),  John  R.  Wise's 
Stratford  *  Shakespere,  his  Birthplace  and  its  Neighbourhood ' 
topo-  (1S61),   the   present  writer's  •  Stratford-on-Avon   to 

graphy.  the  Death  of  Shakespeare'  (1890),  and  Mrs.  C.  C. 
Stopes's  'Shakespeare's  Warwickshire  Contemporaries'  (1897) 
may  be  consulted.  Wise  appends  to  his  volume  a  tentative 
'glossary  of  words  still  used  in  Warwickshire  to  be  found  in 
Shakspere.'  The  parish  registers  of  Stratford  have  been  edited 
by  Mr.  Richard  Savage  for  the  Parish  Registers  Society,  1898-9. 
Nathan  Drake's  '  Shakespeare  and  his  Times'  (1817)  and  G.  W. 
Thornbury's  'Shakespeare's  England'  (1856)  collect  much 
material  respecting  Shakespeare's  social  environment. 

The  chief  monographs  on  special  points  in  Shakespeare's 
biography  are  Dr.  Richard  Farmer's  '  Essay  on  the  Learning  of 
Specialised  Shakespeare'  (1767),  reprinted  in  the  Variorum 
studies  in  editions  ;  Octavius  Gilchrist's  '  Examination  of  the 
biography.  Charges  ...  of  Ben  Jonson's  Enmity  towards 
Shakespeare'  (1808);  W.  J.  Thoms's  'Was  Shakespeare  ever 
a  Soldier  ?'  (1849),  a  study  based  on  an  erroneous  identification 


364  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  poet  with  another  William  Shakespeare  ;  Lord  Campbell's 
'Shakespeare's  Legal  Acquirements  Considered'  (1859);  John 
Charles  Bucknill's  '  Medical  Knowledge  of  Shakespeare  '  (i860)  ; 
C.  F.  Green's ' Shakespeare's  Crab-Tree,  with  its  Legend'  (1862)  ; 

C.  H.  Bracebridge's  'Shakespeare  no  Deer-stealer '  (1862); 
William    Blades's    '  Shakspere  and   Typography'    (1872);    and 

D.  H.  Madden's  '  Diary  of  Master  William  Silence  (Shakespeare 
and  Sport),'  1897.  A  full  epitome  of  the  biographical  informa- 
tion accessible   at   the   date   of  publication  is  supplied  in  Karl 

Elze's  '  Life  of  Shakespeare'  (Halle,  1876;  English 
Useful  epi-    translation.   1888),  with  which  Elze's  'Essays'  from 

the  publications  of  the  German  Shakespeare  Society 
(English  translation,  1874)  are  worth  studying.  A  less  ambitious 
effort  of  the  same  kind  by  Samuel  Neil  (1861)  is  seriously 
injured  by  the  writer's  acceptance  of  Collier's  forgeries.  Pro- 
fessor Dowden's  'Shakespeare  Primer'  (1877)  and  his  'Intro- 
duction to  Shakespeare'  (1893),  and  Dr.  Furnivall's  'Intro- 
duction to  the  Leopold  Shakespeare,'  are  all  useful  summaries 
of  leading  facts. 

Francis  Douce's  'Illustrations  of  Shakespeare'  (1807,  new 
edit.  1839),  'Shakespeare's  Library'  (ed.  J.  P.  Collier  and  W.  C. 
Aids  to  Hazlitt,   1875),  'Shakespeare's  Plutarch'   (ed.  Skeat, 

study  of  1875),  and  'Shakespeare's  Holinshed '  (ed.  W.  G. 
plots  and  Boswell-Stone,  1896)  are  of  service  in  tracing  the 
text.  sources  of  Shakespeare's  plots.     Alexander  Schmidts 

'Shakespeare  Lexicon'  (1874)  and  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott's  'Shake- 
spearean Grammar'  (1869,  new  edit.   1893)  are  valuable  aids  to 

a  study  of  the  text.  Useful  concordances  to  the 
Concor-        plays  have  been  prepared  by   Mrs.   Cowden-Clarke 

dS-TlCGS  11-' 

(1845),  to  the  Poems  by  Mrs.  H.  H.  Furness 
(Philadelphia,  1875),  ^"d  to  Plays  and  Poems,  in  one  volume, 
with  references  to  numbered  lines,  by  John  Bartlett  (London 
and  New  York,  1895).^  A  'Handbook  |ndex'  by  J.  O.  Halliwell 
(privately  printed  1866)  gives  lists  of  obsolete  words  and  phrases, 
songs,  proverbs,  and  plants  mentioned  in  the  works  of  Shake- 
speare.    An  unprinted   glossary   prepared   by  Richard  Warner 

1  The  earliest  attempts  at  a  concordance  were  A  Complete  I'erbal  hidex  to  the 
Plays,  by  F.  Twiss  (1805),  and  An  Index  to  the  Remarkable  Passages  and  Words, 
by  Samuel  Ayscough  (1827),  but  these  are  now  superseded. 


SHAKESPEAREAN   FORGERIES  365 

between  1750  and  1770  is  at  the  British  Museum  (Addit.  MSS. 

10472-542).      Extensive  bibliographies  are  given  in 

Lowndes's  •  Library  Manual '  (ed.   Bohn)  ;   in  Franz 
Efrapnics.  '       , 

Thimm's  '  Shakespeariana '  (1864  and  1871)  ;  in  the 

*  Encyclopeedia    Britannica,'    9th    edit,    (skilfully   classified    by 

Mr.  H.  R.  Tedder);    and  in  the  'British  Museum  Catalogue' 

(the   Shakespearean  entries  in  which,  comprising   3,680  titles, 

were  separately  published  in  1897). 

The  valuable  publications  of  the  Shakespeare  Society,  the 

New   Shakspere    Society,   and   of   the    Deutsche    Shakespeare- 

Gesellschaft,  comprising   contributions   alike   to   the 

" '.'^^  ^Esthetic,  textual,  historical,  and  biographical  study  of 

studies.  ^,     ,  '  .       ,     '  ,  \^ 

Shakespeare,  are  noticed  above  (see  pp.  333-4,  346). 

To  the  critical  studies,  on  which  comment  has  already  been  made 

(see   p.    333).  —  viz.    Coleridge's   'Notes   and   Lectures,'    1883, 

HazHtt's    'Characters  of  Shakespeare's    Plays,'  1817,  Professor 

Dowden's   'Shakespeare:    his    Mind   and   Art,'    1875,   and   Mr. 

A.    C.    Swinburne.    'A    Study   of    Shakespeare,'    1879,  —  there 

may  be  added  the  essays  on  Shakespeare's  heroines  respectively 

by  Mrs.  Jameson  in  1833  and  Lady  Martin  in  1885  ;  Dr.  Ward's 

•English  Dramatic  Literature'  (1875,  new  edit.  1898);  Richard 

G.    Moulton's   'Shakespeare    as   a    Dramatic    Artist'    (1885); 

'Shakespeare    Studies'   by   Thomas    Spencer    Baynes    (1893); 

F.   S.  Boas's   'Shakspere   and   his    Predecessors'    (1895),  and 

Georg  Brandes's  '  William  Shakespeare  '  —  an  elaborately  critical 

but   somewhat  fanciful    study  —  in    Danish  (Copenhagen,   1895, 

8vo),  in  German  (Leipzig,  1895),  and  in  English  (London,  1898, 

2  vols.  8vo). 

The  intense  interest  which  Shakespeare's  life  and  work  have 
long  universally  excited  has  tempted  unprincipled  or  sportively 
Shake-  mischievous  writers  from  time  to  time  to  deceive  the 

spearean  public  by  the  forgery  of  documents  purporting  to 
forgeries.  supply  new  information.  The  forgers  were  espe- 
cially active  at  the  end  of  the  last  century  and  during  the  middle 
years  of  the  present  century,  and  their  frauds  have  caused 
students  so  much  perplexity  that  it  may  be  useful  to  warn  them 
against  those  Shakespearean  forgeries  which  have  obtained  the 
widest  currency. 

The  earliest  forger  to   obtain   notoriety  was   John  Jordan 


366  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

( 1 746-1 809),  a  resident  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  whose  most  impor- 
[ohn  Tor-  ^'"^"^  achievement  was  the  forgery  of  the  will  of 
dan,  Shakespeare's    father;    but    many   other    papers    in 

1746-1809.  Jordan's  '  Original  Collections  on  Shakespeare  and 
Stratford-on-Avon'  (1780),  and  'Original  Memoirs  and  Histori- 
cal Accounts  of  the  Families  of  Shakespeare  and  Hart,'  are  open 
to  the  gravest  suspicion. ^ 

The  best-known  Shakespearean  forger  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  William  Henry  Ireland  (1777-1835),  a  barrister's 
The  Ire-  clerk,  who,  with  the  aid  of  his  father,  Samuel  Ireland 
landforger-  (i740?-i8oo),  an  author  and  engraver  of  some  repute, 
ies,  1796.  produced  in  1796  a  volume  of  forged  papers  claiming 
to  relate  to  Shakespeare's  career.  The  title  ran  :  '  Miscellaneous 
Papers  and  Legal  Instruments  under  the  Hand  and  Seal  of 
William  Shakespeare,  including  the  tragedy  of  "  King  Lear  "  and 
a  small  fragment  of  "Hamlet"  from  the  original  MSS.  in  the 
possession  of  Samuel  Ireland.'  On  April  2,  1796,  Sheridan  and 
Kemble  produced  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre  a  bombastic  tragedy 
in  blank  verse  entitled  '  Vortigern '  under  the  pretence  that  it 
was  by  Shakespeare,  and  had  been  recently  found  among  the 
manuscripts  of  the  dramatist  that  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
Irelands.  The  piece,  which  was  published,  was  the  invention  of 
young  Ireland.  The  fraud  of  the  Irelands,  which  for  some  time 
deceived  a  section  of  the  literary  public,  was  finally  exposed  by 
Malone  in  his  valuable  'Inquiry  into  the  Authenticity  of  the 
Ireland  MSS.'  (1796).  Young  Ireland  afterwards  published  his 
'Confessions'  (1805).  He  had  acquired  much  skill  in  copying 
Shakespeare's  genuine  signature  from  the  facsimile  in  Steevens's 
edition  of  Shakespeare's  works  of  the  mortgage-deed  of  the 
Blackfriars  house  of  1612-13,'^  and,  besides  conforming  to  that 
style  of  handwriting  in  his  forged  deeds  and  literary  com- 
positions, he  inserted  copies  of  the  signature  on  the  title-pages 
of  many  sixteenth-century  books,  and  often  added  notes  in 
the  same  feigned  hand  on  their  margins.  Numerous  sixteenth- 
century  volumes  embellished  by  Ireland  in  this  manner  are 
extant,  and  his  forged  signatures  and  marginalia  have  been 
frequently  mistaken  for  genuine  autographs  of  Shakespeare. 

1  Jordan's  Collections,  including  this  fraudulent  will  of  Shakespeare's  father, 
were  printed  privately  by  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps  in  1864.  2  gee  p.  267. 


SHAKESPEAREAN  FORGERIES        367 

But  Ireland's  and  Jordan's  frauds  are  clumsy  compared  with 
those  that  belong  to  the  present  century.  .  Most  of  the  works 
Forgeries  relating  to  the  biography  of  Shakespeare  or  the 
promulga-  history  of  the  Elizabethan  stage  produced  by  John 
e  y  °"  Payne  Collier,  or  under  his  supervision,  between  1835 
others,  'I'^d   1 849  are   honeycombed  with  forged   references 

1835-1849.  to  Shakespeare,  and  many  of  the  forgeries  have  been 
admitted  unsuspectingly  into  literary  history.  The  chief  of  these 
forged  papers  I  arrange  below  in  the  order  of  dates  that  have 
been  allotted  to  them  by  their  manufacturers. ^ 

1589  (November).  Appeal  from  the  Blackfriars  players 
(16  in  number)  to  the  Privy  Council  for  favour.  Shake- 
speare's name  stands  twelfth.  From  the  manuscripts 
at  Bridgewater  House,  belonging  to  the  Earl  of 
Ellesmere.  First  printed  in  Collier's  'New  Facts 
regarding  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,'  1835. 
1596  (July).  List  of  inhabitants  of  the  Liberty  of  South- 
wark,  Shakespeare's  name  appearing  in  the  sixth  place. 
First  printed  in  Collier's  'Life  of  Shakespeare,'  1858, 
p.  126. 
1596.  Petition  of  the  owners  and  players  of  the  Blackfriars 
Theatre  to  the  Privy  Council  in  reply  to  an  alleged 
petition  of  the  inhabitants  requesting  the  closing  of  the 
playhouse.  Shakespeare's  name  is  fifth  on  the  list  of 
petitioners.  This  forged  paper  is  in  the  Public  Record 
Office,  and  was  first  printed  in  Collier's  '  History  of 
English  Dramatic  Poetry'  (1831),  vol.  i.  p.  297,  and 
has  been  constantly  reprinted  as  if  it  were  genuine.^ 

^  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  character  of  the  manuscript  correc- 
tions made  by  Collier  in  a  copy  of  the  Second  Folio  of  1632,  known  as  the  Perkins 
folio  See  p.  312,  n.  2,  supra.  The  chief  authorities  on  the  subject  of  the  Collier  for- 
geries are :  A  n  Inquiry  into  the  Genuineness  of  the  Matinscript  Corrections  in  Mr. 
y.  Payne  Collier's  Annotated  Shakspere  Folio,  1633,  and 0/ certain  Shaksperian 
Documents  likewise  published  by  Mr.  Collier,  by  N.  E.  S.  A.  Hamilton,  London, 
i860:  A  Complete  View  of  the  Shakespeare  Controversy  conccrtiing  tlie  Authen- 
ticity and  Genuineness  of  Manuscript  Matter  affecting  the  Works  and  Biography 
of  Shakspere,  published  by  y.  Payne  Collier  as  the  Fruits  of  his  Researches,  by 
C.  M.  Ingleby,  LL.D.  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  London,  1861;  Catalogue  of 
the  Manuscripts  and  Muniments  of  Alleyn's  College  of  God's  Gift  at  Dulwich,  by 
George  F.  Warner,  M.A.,  1881;  Notes  on  the  Life  of  James  Payne  Collier,  with  a 
Complete  List  of  his  Works  and  an  Account  of  such  Shakespeare  Documents  as 
are  beliezied  to  be  spurious,  by  Henry  B.  Wheatley.  London,  1884. 

^  See  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic,  1595-71  p.  310. 


368  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

1596  (c/fca).  A  letter  signed  H.  S.  (i.e.  Henry.  Earl  of  South- 
ampton), addressed  to  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  praying 
protection  for  the  players  of  the  Blackfriars  Theatre, 
and  mentioning  Burbage  and  Shalcespeare  by  name. 
First  printed  in  Collier's  •  New  Facts.' 

1596  (area).  A  list  of  sharers  in  the  Blackfriars  Theatre, 
with  the  valuation  of  their  property,  in  which  Shake- 
speare is  credited  with  four  shares,  worth  933/.  6s.  Sci. 
This  was  first  printed  in  Colliers  'New  Facts,'  1835, 
p.  6,  from  the  Egerton  MSS.  at  Bridgewater  House. 

1602  (August  6).  Notice  of  the  performance  of  '  Othello '  by 
Burbage's  '  players '  before  Queen  Elizabeth  when  on 
a  visit  to  Sir  Thomas  Egerton,  the  lord-keeper,  at 
Harefield,  in  a  forged  account  of  disbursements  by 
Egerton's  steward,  Arthur  Mainwaringe,  from  the 
manuscripts  at  Bridgewater  House,  belonging  to  the 
Earl  of  EUesmere.  Printed  in  Collier's  'New  Par- 
ticulars regarding  the  Works  of  Shakespeare,'  1836, 
and  again  in  Collier's  edition  of  the  'Egerton  Papers/ 
1840  (Camden  Society),  pp.  342-3. 

1603  (October  3).  Mention  of  'Mr.  Shakespeare  of  the 
Globe '  in  a  letter  at  Dulwich  from  Mrs.  Alleyn  to  her 
husband;  part  of  the  letter  is  genuine.  First  published 
in  Collier's  '  Memoirs  of  Edward  Alleyn,'  1841,  p.  63. ^ 

1604  (April  9).  List  of  the  names  of  eleven  players  of  the 
King's  Company  fraudulently  appended  to  a  genuine 
letter  at  Dulwich  College  from  the  Privy  Council 
bidding  the  Lord  Mayor  permit  performances  by  the 
King's  players.  Printed  in  Collier's  'Memoirs  of 
Edward  Alleyn,'  1841,  p.  68.- 

1605  (November-December).  Forged  entries  in  Master  of 
the  Revels'  account-books  (  now  at  the  Public  Record 
Office)  of  performances  at  Whitehall  by  the  King's  play- 
ers of  the  '  Moor  of  Venice  '  —  z.e.  '  Othello '  —  on  Nov- 
ember I,  and  of  'Measure  for  Measure'  on  December 
26.  Printed  in  Peter  Cunningham's  'Extracts  from 
the  Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court'  (pp.  203-4),  pub- 

1  See  Warner's  Cniaio^ue  of  Dulwich  MSS.  pp.  34-6. 
*  Cf.  iii'd.  pp.  26-7. 


SHAKESPEAREAN    FORGERIES  369 

lished  by  the  Shakespeare  Society  in  1842.  Doubt- 
less based  on  Malone's  trustworthy  memoranda  (now 
in  Bodleian  Library)  of  researches  among  genuine 
papers  formerly  at  the  Audit  Office  at  Somerset 
House. ^ 

1607.  Notes  of  performances  of  '  Hamlet '  and  '  Richard  II ' 
by  the  crews  of  the  vessels  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany's fleet  off  Sierra  Leone.  First  printed  in  'Narra- 
tives of  Voyages  towards  the  North -West,  1 496-1 631,' 
edited  by  Thomas  Rundall  for  the  Hakluyt  Society, 
1849,  p.  231,  from  what  purported  to  be  an  exact 
transcript  'in  the  India  Office'  of  the  'Journal  of 
William  Keeling,'  captain  of  one  of  the  vessels  in 
the  expedition.  Keeling's  manuscript  journal  is  still 
at  the  India  Office,  but  the  leaves  that  should  contain 
these  entries  are  now,  and  have  long  been,  missing 
from  it. 

1609  (January  4).  A  warrant  appointing  Robert  Daborne, 
William  Shakespeare,  and  others  instructors  of  the 
Children  of  the  Revels.  From  the  Bridgewater 
House   MSS.    first   printed   in   Collier's    'New   Facts,' 

1835- 

^609  (April  6).  List  of  persons  assessed  for  poor  rate  in 
Southwark,  April  6,  1609,  in  w^hich  Shakespeare's 
name  appears.  First  printed  in  Collier's  'Memoirs  of 
Edward  Alleyn,'  1841,  p.  91.  The  forged  paper  is  at 
Dulwich.- 

1611  (November).  Forged  entries  in  Master  of  the  Revels' 
account-books  (now  at  the  Public  Record  Office)  of 
performances  at  Whitehall  by  the  King's  Players  of 
the  'Tempest'  on  November  i,  and  of  the  'Winter's 
Tale'  on  November  5.  Printed  in  Peter  Cunningham's 
'  Extracts  from  the  Revels  Accounts,'  p.  210.  Doubt- 
less based  on  Malone's  trustworthy  memoranda  of 
researches  among  genuine  papers  formerly  at  the 
Audit  Office  at  Somerset  House. ^ 

■  See  p.  235,  n.  i,  supra. 

'  Cf.  Warner's  Dulwich  MSS.  pp.  30-1. 

3  See  p.  255,  n.  i,  supra. 

2  B 


370  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


II 

THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE    CONTROVERSY 

The  apparent  contrast  between  the  homeliness  of  Shakespeare's 

Stratford  career  and  the  breadth  of  observation  and  knowledge 

displayed  in  his  literary  work  has  evoked  the  fantastic 
Its  source 

theory  that  Shakespeare  was  not  the  author  of  the 

literature  that  passes  under  his  name,  and  perverse  attempts 
have  been  made  to  assign  his  works  to  his  great  contemporary, 
Francis  Bacon  (i  561-1626),  the  great  contemporary  prose-writer, 
philosopher,  and  lawyer.  It  is  argued  that  Shakespeare's  plays 
embody  a  general  omniscience  (especially  a  knowledge  of  law) 
which  was  possessed  by  no  contemporary  except  Bacon ;  that 
there  are  many  close  parallelisms  between  passages  in  Shake- 
speare's and  passages  in  Bacon's  works,^  and  that  Bacon  makes 

1  Most  of  those  that  are  commonly  quoted  are  phrases  in  ordinary  use  by  all 
writers  of  the  day.  The  only  point  of  any  interest  raised  in  the  argument  from 
parallelisms  of  expression  centres  about  a  quotation  from  Aristotle  which  Bacon  and 
Shakespeare  not  merely  both  make,  but  make  in  what  looks  at  a  first  glance  to  be 
the  same  erroneous  form.  Aristotle  wrote  in  his  Nicoinachcafi  Ethics,  i.  8,  that 
young  men  were  unfitted  for  the  study  of  political  philosophy.  Bacon,  in  the 
Advancement  of  Learning  {160$),  wrote:  '  Is  not  the  opinion  of  Aristotle  worthy  to 
be  regarded  wherein  he  saith  that  young  men  are  not  fit  auditors  of  moral  phi- 
losophy?' (bk.  ii.  p.  255,  ed.  Kitchin).  Shakespeare,  about  1603,  in  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  11.  ii.  166,  wrote  of  '  young  men  whom  Aristotle  thought  unfit  to  hear  moral 
philosophy.  But  the  alleged  error  of  substituting  moral  for /£?////ca/ philosophy  in 
Aristotle's  text  is  more  apparent  than  real.  By  '  political '  philosophy  Aristotle,  as 
his  context  amply  shows,  meant  the  ethics  of  civil  society,  which  are  hardly  distin- 
guishable from  what  is  commonly  called  'morals.'  In  the  summary  paraphrase  of 
Aristotle's  Ethics  which  was  translated  into  English  from  the  Italian,  and  published 
in  1547,  the  passage  to  which  both  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  refer  is  not  rendered 
literally,  but  its  general  drift  is  given  as  a  warning  that  moral  philosophy  is  not  a  fit 
subject  for  study  by  youths  who  are  naturally  passionate  and  headstrong.  Such 
an  interpretation  of  Aristotle's  language  is  common  among  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
century  writers.    In  a  French  translation  of  the  Ethics  by  the  Comte  de  Plessis,  pub- 


THE   BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CONTROVERSY        37 1 

enigmatic  references  in  his  correspondence  to  secret  '  recrea- 
tions'  and  'alphabets'  and  concealed  poems  for  which  his 
alleged  employment  as  a  concealed  dramatist  can  alone  account. 
Tobv  Toby   Matthew   wrote    to   Bacon    (as   Viscount   St. 

Matthew's  Albans)  at  an  uncertain  date  after  January  1621  : 
letter.  '  Yhe   most  prodigious  wit  that  ever  I  knew  of  my 

nation  and  of  this  side  of  the  sea  is  of  your  Lordship's  name, 
though  he  be  known  by  another.' ^  This  unpretending  sentence 
is  distorted  into  conclusive  evidence  that  Bacon  wrote  works 
of  commanding  excellence  under  another's  name,  and  among 
them  probably  Shakespeare's  plays.  According  to  the  only 
sane  interpretation  of  Matthew's  words,  his  'most  prodigious 
wit '  was  some  Englishman  named  Bacon  whom  he  met  abroad 
—  probably  a  pseudonymous  Jesuit  like  most  of  ^latthew's 
friends.  (The  real  surname  of  Father  Thomas  Southwell,  who 
was  a  learned  Jesuit  domiciled  chiefly  in  the  Low  Countries, 
was  Bacon.  He  was  born  in  1592  at  Sculthorpe,  near  Wal- 
singham,  Norfolk,  being  son  of  Thomas  Bacon  of  that  place,  and 
he  died  at  Watten  in  1637.) 

Joseph  C.  Hart  (U.  S.  Consul  at  Santa  Cruz,  rf.  1855),  in  his 
'  Romance  of  Yachting'  (1848),  first  raised  doubts  of  Shake- 
speare's authorship.     There  followed  in  a  like  temper 

lie  ex-       '  Who  wrote  Shakespeare?  ■  in  'Chambers's  Journal,' 
ponents.  . 

August  7,  1852,  and  an  article  by  Miss  Delia  Bacon 

in  '  Putnams'  Monthly,'  January  1856.     On  the  latter  was  based 

'  The    Philosophy   of    the   Plays   of    Shakespeare    unfolded   by 

Delia  Bacon,'  with  a  neutral  preface  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 

London  and  Boston,  1857.     Miss  Delia  Bacon,  who  was  the  first 

to  spread  abroad  a  spirit  of  scepticism  respecting  the  established 

facts   of    Shakespeare's    career,   died   insane   on   September  2, 

lished  at  Paris  in  1553,  the  passage  is  rendered  '  parquoy  le  ieune  enfant  n'est  suffisant 
auditeur  de  la  science  civile;  '  and  an  English  commentator  (in  a  manuscript  note 
written  about  1605  in  a  copy  of  the  book  in  the  British  Museum)  turned  the  sentence 
into  English  thus:  'Whether  a  young  man  may  be  a  fitte  schoUer  of  .v/ora// philo- 
sophie.'  In  1622  an  Italian  essayist,  Virgilio  Malvezzi,  in  his  preface  to  his  Discorsi 
sopra  Cornelio  Tacito,  has  the  remark,  '  E  non  e  discordante  da  questa  mia 
opinione  .'\ristotele,  il  qual  dice,  che  i  giovani  non  sono  buoni  ascultatori  delle 
tnorali"  (cf.  Spedding,  Works  of  Bacon,  \.  739,  iii.  440). 

'  Cf  V>\xz\\,  Letters  of  Bacon,  1763,  p.  392.  A  foolish  suggestion  has  been  made 
that  Matthew  was  referring  to  Francis  Bacon's  brother  Anthony,  who  died  in  1601; 
Matthew  was  writing  of  a  man  who  was  alive  more  than  twenty  years  later. 


372  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

1859.^  Mr.  William  Henry  Smith,  a  resident  in  London,  seems 
first  to  have  suggested  the  Baconian  hypothesis  in  'Was  Lord 
Bacon  the  author  of  Shakespeare's  plays? — a  letter  to  Lord 
EUesmere'  (1856),  which  was  republished  as  'Bacon  and 
Shakespeare'  (1857).  The  most  learned  exponent  of  this 
strange  theory  was  Nathaniel  Holmes,  an  American  lawyer, 
who  published  at  New  York  in  1866  'The  Authorship  of  the 
Plays  attributed  to  Shakespeare,'  a  monument  of  misapplied 
ingenuity  (4th  ed.  1886,  2  vols.).  Bacon's  '  Promus  of  Formu- 
laries and  Elegancies,'  a  commonplace  book  in  Bacon's  hand- 
writing in  the  British  Museum  (London,  1883),  was  first  edited 
by  Mrs.  Henry  Pott,  a  voluminous  advocate  of  the  Baconian 
theory ;  it  contained  many  words  and  phrases  common  to  the 
w^orks  of  Bacon  and  Shakespeare,  and  Mrs.  Pott  pressed  the 
argument  from  parallelisms  of  expression  to  its  extremest 
limits.  The  Baconian  theory  has  found  its  widest  acceptance 
in  America.  There  it  achieved  its  wildest  manifestation  in  the 
book  called  '  The  Great  Cryptogram  :  Francis  Bacon's 
Its  vogue  Cypher  in  the  so-called  Shakespeare  Plays  '  (Chicago 
and  London,  1887,  2  vols.),  which  was  the  work  of 
Mr.  Ignatius  Donnelly  of  Hastings,  Minnesota.  The  author 
pretended  to  have  discovered  among  Bacon's  papers  a  numerical 
cypher  which  enabled  him  to  pick  out  letters  appearing  at  certain 
intervals  in  the  pages  of  Shakespeare's  First  Folio,  and  the 
selected  letters  formed  words  and  sentences  categorically  stating 
that  Bacon  was  author  of  the  plays.  Many  refutations  have 
been  published  of  Mr.  Donnelly's  arbitrary  and  baseless  con- 
tention. 

A  Bacon  Society  was  founded  in  London  in  1885  to  develop 
and  promulgate  the  unintelligible  theory,  and  it  inaugurated  a 
Extent  of  magazine  (named  since  May  1893  '  Baconiana').  A 
the  litera-  quarterly  periodical  also  called  '  Baconiana,'  and 
ture.  issued    in    the    same    interest,    was    established    at 

Chicago  in  1892.  'The  Bibliography  of  the  Shakespeare-Bacon 
Controversy'  by  W.  H.  Wyman,  Cincinnati,  1884,  gives  the 
titles  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-five  books  or  pamphlets  on  both 
sides  of  the  subject,  published  since  1848  ;  the  list  was  continued 
during  1886  in  '  Shakespeariana,'  a  monthly  journal  published 

1  Cf.  Life  by  Theodore  Bacon,  London,  1888. 


THE  BACON-SHAKESPEARE   CONTROVERSY        373 

at   Philadelphia,  and  might  now  be  extended  to  fully  twice  its 
original  number. 

The  abundance  of  the  contemporary  evidence  attesting 
Shakespeare's  responsibility  for  the  works  published  under  his 
name  gives  the  Baconian  theory  no  rational  right  to  a  hearing ; 
while  such  authentic  examples  of  Bacon's  efTort  to  write  verse 
as  survive  prove  beyond  all  possibility  of  contradiction  that, 
great  as  he  was  as  a  prose-writer  and  a  philosopher,  he  was 
incapable  of  penning  any  of  the  poetry  assigned  to  Shake- 
speare. Defective  knowledge  and  illogical  or  casuistical  argu- 
ment alone  render  any  other  conclusion  possible. 


374  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


I 


III 

THE  YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  THE  EARL  OF 
SOUTHAMPTON 

From  the  dedicatory  epistles  addressed  by  Sliakespeare  to  the 
Earl  of  Southampton  in  the  opening  pages  of  his  two  narrative 

poems,  'Venus  and  Adonis'  (1593)  and  'Lucrece' 
ton\nd"^  (1594),^  from  the  account  given  by  Sir  William 
Shake-  D'Avenant,  and  recorded  by  Nicholas  Rov^e,  of  the 

speaie.  earPs   liberal    bounty   to   the    poet,-   and,   from    the 

language  of  the  sonnets,  it  is  abundantly  clear  that  Shakespeare 
enjoyed  very  friendly  relations  with  Southampton  from  the  time 
when  his  genius  was  nearing  its  maturity.  No  contemporary 
document  or  tradition  gives  the  faintest  suggestion  that  Shake- 
speare was  the  friend  or  protege  of  any  man  of  rank  other  than 
Southampton ;  and  the  student  of  Shakespeare's  biography  has 
reason  to  ask  for  some  information  respecting  him  who  enjoyed 
the  exclusive  distinction  of  serving  Shakespeare  as  his  patron. 

Southampton  was  a  patron  worth  cultivating.  Both  his 
parents  came  of  the  New  Nobility,  and  enjoyed  vast  wealth. 
His  father's  father  was  Lord  Chancellor  under  Henry  VIH, 
and  when  the  monasteries  were  dissolved,  although  he  was 
faithful   to    the   old    rehgion,    he    was    granted   rich   estates    in 

Hampshire,  including  the  Abbeys  of  Titchfield  and 
Parentage,    gg^yjjg^,  jjj  ^j^g  jv^g^  Forest.     He  was  created  Earl 

of  Southampton  early  in  Edward  VFs  reign,  and,  dying  shortly 
afterwards,  was  succeeded  by  his  only  son,  the  father  of  Shake- 
speare's friend.  The  second  Earl  loved  magnificence  in  his 
household.  '  He  was  highly  reverenced  and  favoured  of  all  that 
were  of  his  own  rank,  and  bravely  attended  and  served  by  the 

1  See  pp.  4,  77,  127.  2  See  p.  126. 


i 


THE  YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  375 

best  gentlemen  of  those  countries  wherein  he  lived.  His  muster- 
roll  never  consisted  of  four  lacqueys  and  a  coachman,  but  of  a 
whole  troop  of  at  least  a  hundred  well-mounted  gentlemen 
and  yeomen.'  ^  The  second  Earl  remained  a  Catholic,  like  his 
father,  and  a  chivalrous  avowal  of  sympathy  with  Mary  Queen 
of  Scots  procured  him  a  term  of  imprisonment  in  the  year 
preceding  his  distinguished  son's  birth.  At  a  youthful  age 
he  married  a  lady  of  fortune,  Mary  Browne,  daughter  of  the 
first  Viscount  Montague,  also  a  Catholic.  Her  portrait,  now 
at  Welbeck,  was  painted  in  her  early  married  days,  and 
shows  regularly  formed  features  beneath  bright  auburn  hair. 
Two  sons  and  a  daughter  were  the  issue  of  the  union.  Shake- 
speare's   friend,    the    second   son,   was   borne    at    her  father's 

residence,  Cowdray  House,  near  Midhurst,  on 
q'j,j^°"        October  6,  1573.     He  was  thus  Shakespeare's  junior 

by  nine  years  and  a  half.  'A  goodly  boy,  God  bless 
him!'  exclaimed  the  gratified  father,  writing  of  his  birth  to  a 
friend. 2  But  the  father  barely  survived  the  boy's  infancy.  He 
died  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-five  —  two  days  before  the  child's 
eighth  birthday.  The  elder  son  was  already  dead.  Thus,  on 
October  4,  1581.  the  second  and  only  surviving  son  became 
third  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  entered  on  his  great  inheri- 
tance.^ 

As  was  customary  in  the  case  of  an  infant  peer,  the  little 
Earl  became  a  royal  ward  —  '  a  child  of  state  ' —  and  Lord 
Burghley,  the  Prime  Minister,  acted  as  tlie  boy's  guardian  in 
the  Queen's  behalf.     Burghley  had  good  reason  to  be  satisfied 

with   his   ward's   intellectual    promise.     '  He   spent,' 

wrote  a  contemporary,  '  his  childhood  and  other 
younger  terms  in  the  study  of  good  letters.'  At  the  age  of 
twelve,  in  the  autumn  of  1585,  he  was  admitted  to  St.  John's 
College,  Cambridge.  '  the  sweetest  nurse  of  knowledge  in  all 
the    University.'      Southampton   breathed    easily   the   cultured 

'Gervase  Markham,  Honour  in  his  Perfection,  1624. 

-  Loseley  MSS.  ed.  A.  J.  Kempe,  p.  240. 

'His  mother,  after  thirteen  years  of  widowhood,  married  in  1594  Sir  Thomas 
Heneage,  Vice-Chamberlain  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  household;  but  he  died  within  a 
year,  and  in  1596  she  took  a  third  husband,  Sir  William  Hervey,  who  distinguished 
himself  in  military  service  in  Ireland  and  was  created  a  peer  as  Lord  Hervey  by 
James  I. 


3/6  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

atmosphere.  Next  summer  he  sent  his  guardian,  Burghley,  an 
essay  in  Ciceronian  Latin  on  the  somewhat  cynical  text  that 
'  All  men  are  moved  to  the  pursuit  of  virtue  by  the  hope  of 
reward.'  The  argument,  if  unconvincing,  is  precocious.  '  Everj' 
man,'  the  boy  tells  us,  '  no  matter  how  well  or  how  ill  endowed 
with  the  graces  of  humanity,  whether  in  the  enjoyment  of  great 
honour  or  condemned  to  obscurity,  experiences  that  yearning 
for  glory  which  alone  begets  virtuous  endeavour.'  The  paper, 
still  preserved  at  Hatfield,  is  a  model  of  caligraphy ;  every 
letter  is  shaped  with  delicate  regularity,  and  betrays  a  refine- 
ment most  uncommon  in  boys  of  thirteen. ^  Southampton  re- 
mained at  the  University  for  some  two  years,  graduating  M.A. 
at  sixteen,  in  1589.  Throughout  his  after  life  he  cherished  for 
his  college  '  great  love  and  affection.' 

Before  leaving  Cambridge,  Southampton  entered  his  name 
at  Gray's  Inn.  Some  knowledge  of  law  was  deemed  needful  in 
one  who  was  to  control  a  landed  property  that  was  not  only 
large  already  but  likely  to  grow.^  Meanwhile  he  was  sedu- 
lously cultivating  his  literary  tastes.  He  took  into  his 
'  pay  and  patronage '  John  Florio,  the  well-known  author  and 
Italian  tutor,  and  was  soon,  according  to  Florio's  testimony,  as 
thoroughly  versed  in  Italian  as  'teaching  or  learning'  could 
make  him. 

•When  he  was  young,'  wrote  a  later  admirer,  '  no  ornament 
of  youth  was  wanting  in  him ; '  and  it  was  naturally  to  the 
Court  that  his  friends  sent  him  at  an  early  age  to  display  his 
varied  graces.  He  can  hardly  have  been  more  than  seventeen 
when  he  was  presented  to  his  Sovereign.  She  showed  him 
kindly  notice,  and  the  Earl  of  Essex,  her  brilliant  favourite, 
acknowledged  his  fascination.     Thenceforth  Essex  displayed  in 

'  By  kind  permission  of  theJMarquis  of  Salisbury  I  lately  copied  out  this  essay 
at  Hatfield. 

2  In  1583  his  brother-in-law,  Thomas  Arundel,  afterwards  first  Lord  Arundel  or 
Wardour  (husband  of  his  only  sister,  Mary),  petitioned  Lord  Burghley  to  grant  him 
an  additional  tract  of  the  New  Forest  about  his  house  at  Beaulieu.  Although  in  his 
'  nonage,'  Arundel  wrote,  the  Earl  was  by  no  means  '  of  the  smallest  hope.'  Arundel, 
with  almost  prophetic  insight,  added  that  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  was  Southampton's 
'  most  feared  rival '  in  the  competition  for  the  land  in  question.  Arundel  was  refer- 
ring to  the  father  of  that  third  Earl  of  Pembroke  who,  despite  the  absence  of  evi- 
dence, has  been  described  as  Shakespeare's  friend  of  the  sonnets  (of.  Calendar  of 
Hatfield  MSS.  iii.  365). 


THE   YOUTHFUL  CAREER   OF   SOUTHAMPTON     377 

bis  welfare  a  brotherly  interest  which  proved  in  course  of  time 

a  very  doubtful  blessing. 

While    still   a    boy,    Southampton    entered   with   as   much 

zest  into  the  sports  and  dissipations  of  his  fellow-courtiers  as 

Recogni-       into  their  literary  and  artistic  pursuits.     At  tennis,  in 

tion  of  jousts   and    tournaments,   he    achieved    distinction ; 

Southamp-  ,  1        1   ,.    1  r  1  ,• 

ton's  youth-   ^or  was  he  a  stranger  to  the  delights  of  gambling  at 

ful  beauty,  primero.  In  1592,  when  he  was  in  his  eighteenth 
year,  he  was  recognised  as  the  most  handsome  and  accom- 
plished of  all  the  young  lords  who  frequented  the  royal  presence. 
In  the  autumn  of  that  year  Elizabeth  paid  Oxford  a  visit  in 
state.  Southampton  was  in  the  throng  of  noblemen  who  bore 
her  company.  In  a  Latin  poem  describing  the  brilliant  cere- 
monial, which  was  published  at  the  time  at  the  University  Press, 
eulogy  was  lavished  without  stint  on  all  the  Queen's  attendants ; 
but  the  academic  poet  declared  that  Southampton's  personal 
attractions  exceeded  those  of  any  other  in  the  royal  train.  'No 
other  youth  who  was  present,'  he  wrote,  '  was  more  beautiful 
than  this  prince  of  Hampshire  (gno  no7i  formosior  alter  affuit), 
nor  more  distinguished  in  the  arts  of  learning,  although  as  yet 
tender  down  scarce  bloomed  on  his  cheek.'  The  last  words 
testify  to  Southampton's  boyish  appearance. ^  Next  year  it  was 
rumoured  that  his  '  external  grace '  was  to  receive  signal  recog- 
nition by  his  admission,  despite  his  juvenility,  to  the  Order  of 
the  Garter.  '  There  be  no  Knights  of  the  Garter  new  chosen  as 
yet,'  wrote  a  well-informed  courtier  on  May  3,  1 593,  '■  but  there 
were  four  nominated.'-  Three  were  eminent  public  servants, 
but  first  on  the  list  stood  the  name  of  young  Southampton.  The 
purpose  did  not  take  effect,  but  the  compliment  of  nomination 
was,  at  his  age,  without  precedent  outside  the  circle  of  the 
Sovereign's  kinsmen.  On  November  17,  1595.  he  appeared  in 
the   lists   set   up   in   the   Queen's   presence   in   honour   of   the 

'  Cf.   Apollinis   et  Musaruni    EuKTixa  EiiuAAia,  Oxford,  1592,  reprinted   in 
Elizabethan  Oxford  (Oxford  Historical  Society),  edited  by  Charles  Plummer,  xxix. 

294: 

Post  hunc  {i.e.  Earl  of  Essex)  insequitur  clara  de  stirpe  Dynasta, 
Lomes  lure  suo  diues  quern  South-Hamptonia  magnum 

"    '"  Vendicat  heroem :  quo  non  formosior  alter 

.'^  Affuit,  aut  docta  iuuenis  praestantior  arte; 

tonicE.  ^      ,•  -     •     J        7 

Ora  licet  tenera  vix  dum  lanugine  vement. 

-  Historical  MSS.  Commission,  7th  Report  (Appendix),  p.  5213. 


3/8  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

thirty-seventh  anniversary  of  her  accession.  The  poet  George 
Peele  pictured  in  blank  verse  the  gorgeous  scene,  and  likened 
the  Earl  of  Southampton  to  that  ancient  type  of  chivalry,  Bevis 
of  Southampton,  so  '  valiant  in  arms,'  so  '  gentle  and  debonair,' 
did  he  appear  to  all  beholders.^ 

But  clouds  were  rising  on  this  sunlit  horizon.  Southampton, 
a  wealthy  peer  without  brothers  or  uncles,  was  the  only  male 
representative  of  his  house.  A  lawful  heir  was  essential  to  the 
entail  of  his  great  possessions.  Early  marriages  —  child-mar- 
riages —  were  in  vogue  in  all  ranks  of  society,  and  South- 
ampton's   mother    and     guardian     regarded    matrimony    at    a 

tender  age  as  especially  incumbent  on  him  in  view 
t^^marry.*^^    of    his    rich    heritage.      When    he    was    seventeen 

Burghley  accordingly  offered  him  a  wife  in  the 
person  of  his  granddaughter,  Lady  Elizabeth  Vere,  eldest 
daughter  of  his  daughter  Anne  and  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford.  The 
Countess  of  Southampton  approved  the  match,  and  told 
Burghley  that  her  son  was  not  averse  from  it.  Her  wish  was 
father  to  the  thought.  Southampton  declined  to  marry  to 
order,  and,  to  the  confusion  of  his  friends,  was  still  a  bachelor 
when  he  came  of  age  in  1594.  Nor  even  then  did  there  seem 
much  prospect  of  his  changing  his  condition.  He  was  in 
some  ways  as  young  for  his  years  in  inward  disposition  as  in 
outward  appearance.  Although  gentle  and  amiable  in  most 
relations  of  life,  he  could  be  childishly  self-willed  and  impulsive, 
and  outbursts  of  anger  involved  him,  at  Court  and  elsewhere,  in 
many  petty  quarrels  which  were  with  difficulty  settled  without 
bloodshed.  Despite  his  rank  and  wealth,  he  was  consequently 
accounted  by  many  ladies  of  far  too  uncertain  a  temper 
to  sustain  marital  responsibilities  with  credit.  Lady  Bridget 
Manners,  sister  of  his  friend  the  Earl  of  Rutland,  was  in 
1594  looking  to  matrimony  for  means  of  release  from  the 
servitude  of  a  lady-in-waiting  to  the  Queen.  Her  guardian 
suggested  that  Southampton  or  the  Earl  of  Bedford,  who  was 
intimate  with  Southampton  and  exactly  of  his  age,  would  be  an 
eligible  suitor.  Lady  Bridget  dissented.  Southampton  and 
his  friend  were,  she  objected,  '  so  young,''  '  fantastical.'  and 
volatile    ('so    easily   carried    away')    that    should    ill    fortune 


THE  YOUTHFUL  CAREER  OF  SOUTHAMPTON  379 

befall  her  mother,  who  was  '  her  only  stay,'  she  '  doubted 
their  carriage  of  themselves.'  She  spoke,  she  said,  from 
observ^ation.^ 

In  1595,  at  two-and-twenty,  Southampton  justified  Lady 
Bridget's  censure  by  a  public  proof  of  his  fallibility.  The 
Intrigue  fair  mistress  Vernon  (first  cousin  of  the  Earl  of 
beth  Ver^'  Essex),  a  passionate  beauty  of  the  Court,  cast  her 
non.  spell  on  him.     Her  virtue  was  none  too  stable,  and 

in  September  the  scandal  spread  that  Southampton  was  court- 
ing her  "with  too  much  familiarity.' 

The  entanglement  with  '  his  fair  mistress '  opened  a  new 
chapter  in  Southampton's  career,  and  life's  tempests  began  in 
earnest.  Either  to  free  himself  from  his  mistress's  toils,  or  to 
divert  attention  from  his  intrigue,  he  in  1596  withdrew  from 
Court  and  sought  sterner  occupation.  Despite  his  mistress's 
amentations,  which  the  Court  gossips  duly  chronicled,  he  played 
part  with  his  friend  Essex,  in  the  military  and  naval  expedition 
to  Cadiz  in  1596.  and  in  that  to  the  Azores  in  1597.  He  devel- 
oped a  martial  ardour  which  brought  him  renown,  and  Mars 
(his  admirers  said)  vied  with  Mercury  for  his  allegiance.  He 
travelled  on  the  Continent,  and  finally,  in  1598.  he  accepted  a 
subordinate   place  in  the   suite  of  the   Queen's  Secretary,   Sir 

Robert  Cecil,  who  was  going  on  an  embassy  to 
kf  1598^^       Paris.     But  Mistress  Vernon  was  still  fated  to  be  his 

evil  genius,  and  Southampton  learnt  while  in  Paris 
that  her  condition  rendered  marriage  essential  to  her  decaying 
reputation.  He  hurried  to  London  and,  yielding  his  own 
scruples  to  her  entreaties,  secretly  made  her  his  wife  during  the 
few  days  he  stayed  in  this  country.  The  step  was  full  of  peril. 
To  marry  a  lady  of  the  Court  without  the  Queen's  consent 
infringed  a  prerogative  of  the  Crown  by  which  Elizabeth  set 
exaggerated  store. 

1  Cal.  of  the  Duke  of  Rutland's  MSS.  i.  321.  Barnabe  Barnes,  who  was  one  of 
Southampton's  poetic  admirers,  addressed  a  crude  sonnet  to  '  the  Beautiful  Lady,  The 
Lady  Bridget  Manners,'  in  1593,  at  the  same  time  as  he  addressed  one  to  South- 
ampton. Both  are  appended  to  Barnes's  collection  of  sonnets  and  other  poems 
entitled  Parthenophe  and  Parthenophil  (cf.  Arber's  Garner,  v.  486).  Barnes 
apostrophises  Lady  Bridget  as  '  fairest  and  sweetest' 
Of  all  those  sweet  and  fair  flowers, 
The  pride  of  chaste  Cynthia's  \i.e.  Queen  Elizabeth's]  rich  crown. 


38o  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  story  ^f  Southampton's  marriage  was  soon  public  prop 
erty.  His  wife  quickly  became  a  mother,  and  when  he  crossea 
the  Channel  a  few  weeks  later  to  revisit  her  he  was  received  by 
pursuivants,  who  had  the  Queen's  orders  to  carry  him  to  the  Fleet 
prison.  For  the  time  his  career  was  ruined.  Although  he  was 
soon  released  from  gaol,  all  avenues  to  the  Queen's  favour  were 
closed  to  him.  He  sought  employment  in  the  wars  in  Ireland, 
but  high  command  was  denied  him.  Helpless  and  hopeless,  he 
late  in  1600  joined  Essex,  another  fallen  favourite,  in  fomenting 
a  rebellion  in  London,  in  order  to  regain  by  force  the  positions 
each  had  forfeited.  The  attempt  at  insurrection  failed,  and 
the  conspirators  stood  their  trial  on  a  capital  charge  of  treason 
Im    is  '^^   February    19,    1600-1.      Southampton   was   con- 

ment,  demned  to  die,  but  the  Queen's   Secretary  pleaded 

1601-3.  ^jt]-,  ]^g,-  (^j-ig^t-  .  jj^g  poor  young  Earl,  merely  for  the 

love  of  Esse.v,  had  been  drawn  into  this  action,'  and  his  punish- 
ment was  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life.  Further  mitiga- 
tion was  not  to  be  looked  for  while  the  Queen  lived.  But  Essex, 
Southampton's  friend,  had  been  James's  sworn  ally.  The  first 
act  of  James  I  as  monarch  of  England  was  to  set  Southampton 
free  (April  10.  1603).  After  a  confinement  of  more  than  two 
years,  SouthamjDton  resumed,  under  happier  auspices,  his  place 
at  Court. 

Southampton's  later  career  does  not  directly  concern  the 
student  of  Shakespeare's  biography.  After  Shakespeare  had 
Later  congratulated    Southampton    on    his    liberty    in    his 

career.  Sonnet  cvii.,   there  is   no  trace  of  further  relations 

between  them,  although  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they 
remained  friends  to  the  end.  Southampton  on  his  release  from 
prison  was  immediately  installed  a  Knight  of  the  Garter,  and 
was  appointed  Governor  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  while  an  Act  of 
Parliament  relieved  him  of  all  the  disabilities  incident  to  his 
conviction  of  treason.  He  was  thenceforth  a  prominent  figure 
in  Court  festivities.  He  twice  danced  a  correnta  with  the 
Queen  at  the  magnificent  entertainment  given  at  Whitehall  on 
August  19,  1604,  in  honour  of  the  Constable  of  Castile,  the 
special  ambassador  of  Spain,  wlio  had  come  to  sign  a  treaty  of 
peace  between  his  Sovereign  and  James  I.^     But  home  politics 

1  See  p.  233,  n.  2. 


THE   YOUTHFUL   CAREER   OF   SOUTHAMPTON.     38 1 

proved  no  congenial  field  for  the  exercise  of  Southampton's 
energies.  Quarrels  with  fellow-courtiers  continued  to  jeopardise 
his  fortunes.  With  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  with  Philip  Herbert,  Earl  of 
Montgomery,  and  with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  he  had  violent 
disputes.  It  was  in  the  schemes  for  colonising  the  New  World  ■ 
that  Southampton  found  an  outlet  for  his  impulsive  activity. 
He  helped  to  equip  expeditions  to  Virginia,  and  acted  as 
treasurer  of  the  Virginia  Company.  The  map  of  the  country 
commemorates  his  labours  as  a  colonial  pioneer.  In  his 
honour  were  named  Southampton  Hundred,  Hampton  River, 
and  Hampton  Roads  in  Virginia.  Finally,  in  the  summer  of 
1624,  at  the  age  of  fifty-one,  Southampton,  with  characteristic 
spirit,  took  command  of  a  troop  of  English  volunteers  which 
was  raised  to  aid  the  Elector  Palatine,  husband  of  James  I's 
daughter  Elizabeth,  in  his  struggle  with  the  Emperor  and  the 
Catholics  of  Central  Europe.  With  him  went  his  eldest  son, 
Lord  Wriothesley.  Both  on  landing  in  the  Low  Countries  were 
attacked  by  fever.  The  younger  man  succumbed  at  once.  The 
Earl  regained  sufficient  strength  to  accompany  his  son's  body 
D  ath  ^°  Bergen-op-Zoom,  but  there,  on  November  10,  he 

Nov.  10,        liimself  died   of  a   lethargy.     Father  and  son  were 
1624.  both   buried  in  the  chancel  of  the  church  of  Titch- 

field,  Hampshire,  on  December  28.     Southampton  thus  outlived 
Shakespeare  by  more  than  eight  years. 


382  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


IV 

THE   EARL    OF  SOUTHAMPTON  AS   A    LITERARY 
PATRON 

Southampton's  close  relations  with  men  of  letters  of  his 
time  give  powerful  corroboration  of  the  theory  that  he  was  the 
patron  whom  Shakespeare  commemorated  in  the  sonnets.  From 
earliest  to  latest  manhood  —  throughout  the  dissipations  of 
Court  life,  amid  the  torments  that  his  intrigue  cost  him,  in  the 
distractions  of  war  and  travel  —  the  Earl  never  ceased  to  cherish 
the  passion  for  literature  which  was  implanted  in  him  in  boy- 
hood. His  devotion  to  his  old  college,  St.  John's,  is  charac- 
teristic. When  a  new  library  was  in  course  of  construction 
Southamp-  there  during  the  closing  years  of  his  life,  Southamp- 
ton scollec-  ton  collected  books  to  the  value  of  ^60/.  wherewith 
tion  01  .         .  ,  .  ■ 

books.  to   furnish   it.     This    '■  monument    of  love,'    as    the 

College  authorities  described  the  benefaction,  may  still  be  seen 
on  the  shelves  of  the  College  library.  The  gift  largely  consisted 
of  illuminated  manuscripts — books  of  hours,  legends  of  the 
saints,  and  mediaeval  chronicles.  Southampton  caused  his  son 
to  be  educated  at  St.  John's,  and  his  wife  expressed  to  the 
tutors  the  hope  that  the  boy  would  '  imitate '  his  father  '  in  his 
love  to  learning  and  to  them.' 

Even  the  State  papers  and  business  correspondence  in 
which  Southampton's  career  is  traced  are  enlivened  by  refer- 
ences to  his  literary  interests.  Especially  refreshing  are  the 
active  signs  vouchsafed  there  of  his  sympathy  with  the  great 
References    birth    of  English    drama.      It   was    with   plays   that 

in  his  let-      Jig  joined  other  noblemen  in  i  cqS  in  entertainins:  his 

ters  to  .  .  . 

poems  and    chief,  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  on  the  eve  of  the  departure 

plays.  for   Paris    of  that   embassy   in   which   Southampton 

served   Cecil    as   a   secretary.     In   July  following  Southampton 

contrived  to  enclose  in  an  official  despatcli  from  Paris  '  certain 

songs'  which  he  was  anxious  that  Sir  Robert  Sidney,  a  friend 


SOUTHAMPTON   AS   A   LITERARY    PATRON         383 

of  literary  tastes,  should  share  his  delight  in  reading.  Twelve 
months  later,  while  Southampton  was  in  Ireland,  a  letter  to  him 
from  the  Countess  attested  that  current  literature  was  an  every- 
day topic  of  their  private  talk.  'AH  the  news  I  can  send  you,' 
she  wrote  to  her  husband,  '  that  I  think  will  make  you  merry,  is 
that  I  read  in  a  letter  from  London  that  Sir  John  Falstaff  is,  by 
his  mistress  Dame  Pintpot,  made  father  of  a  goodly  miller's  thumb 
—  a  boy  that's  all  head  and  very  little  body ;  but  this  is  a  secret.'  ^ 
This  cryptic  sentence  proves  on  the  part  of  both  Earl  and 
Countess  familiarity  with  FalstafF's  adventures  in  Shakespeare's 
'  Henry  IV,'  where  the  fat  knight  apostrophised  Mrs.  Quickly 
as  'good  pint  pot'  (pt.  i.  ii.  4,  443).  Who  the  acquaintances 
were  about  whom  the  Countess  jested  thus  lightly  does  not 
appear,  but  that  Sir  John,  the  father  of  'the  boy  that  was  all 
head  and  very  little  body,"  was  a  playful  allusion  to  Sir  John's 
creator  is  by  no  means  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility.  In 
the  letters  of  Sir  Toby  Matthew,  two  of  which  were  written  very 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century  (although  first  published  in 
1660),  the  sobriquet  of  Sir  John  Falstaff  seems  to  have  been  be- 
stowed on  Shakespeare:  'As  that  excellent  author  Sir  John  Fal- 
staff sayes,  ••  what  for  your  businesse,  news,  device,  foolerie,  and 
libertie,  I  never  dealt  better  since  I  was  a  man."  '^ 

When,  after  leaving  Ireland,  Southampton  spent  the  autumn 
of  1599  in  London,  it  was  recorded  that  he  and  his  friend  Lord 
Rutland  '  come  not  to  Court '  but  '  pass  away  the  time  merely  in 

going  to  plays  every  day.'  ^  It  seems  that  the  fascina- 
te^ t'heatre^  ^^°^   ^'^^'-  ^^^^  drama  had  for  Southampton   and   his 

friends  led  them  to  exaggerate  the  influence  that  it 
was  capable  of  exerting  on  the  emotions  of  the  multitude.  South- 
ampton and  Essex  in  February  1601  requisitioned  and  paid  for 
the  revival  of  Shakespeare's  'Richard  II'  at  the  Globe  Theatre 
on  the  day  preceding  that  fixed  for  their  insurrection,  in  the  hope 
that  the  play-scene  of  the  deposition  of  a  king  might  excite 
the  citizens  of  London  to  countenance  their  rebellious  design.* 
Imprisonment    sharpened  Southampton's  zest   for   the   theatre. 

'  The  original  letter  is  at  Hatfield.  The  whole  is  printed  in  Historical  Manu- 
scripts Commission,  3rd  Rep.  p.  145. 

-  The  quotation  is  a  confused  reminiscence  of  Falstaff's  remarks  in  i  Henry  IV. 
II.  iv.     The  last  nine  words  are  an  exact  quotation  of  lines  igo-i. 

2  Sidney  Papers,  ii.  132.  ■*  See  p.  175. 


384  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

Within  a  year  of  liis  release  from  the  Tower  in  1603  he  enter- 
tained Queen  Anne  of  Denmark  at  his  house  in  the  Strand, 
and  Burbage  and  his  fellow-players,  one  of  whom  was  Shake- 
speare, were  bidden  to  present  the  *  old '  play  of  '  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,'  whose  '  wit  and  mirth '  were  calculated  *  to  please  her 
Majesty  exceedingly.' 

But  these  are  merely  accidental  testimonies  to  Southampton's 
literary  predilections.  It  is  in  literature  itself,  not  in  the  prosaic 
records  of  his  political  or  domestic  life,  that  the  amplest  proofs 
survive  of  his  devotion  to  letters.  From  the  hour  that,  as  a 
handsome  and  accomplished  lad,  he  joined  the  Court  and  made 

London  his  chief  home,  authors  acknowledged  his 
Poetic  adu-   jjppreciation  of  literary  eiTort  of  almost  every  quality 

and  form.  He  had  in  his  Italian  tutor  Florio,  whose 
circle  of  acquaintance  included  all  men  of  literary  reputation,  a 
mentor  who  allowed  no  work  of  promise  to  escape  his  observa- 
tion. Every  note  in  the  scale  of  adulation  was  sounded  in 
Southampton's  honour  in  contemporary  prose  and  verse.  Soon 
after  the  publication,  in  April  1593,  of  Shakespeare's  'Venus 
and  Adonis,'  with  its  salutation  of  Southampton,  a  more  youth- 
Barnabe        ful   apprentice  to   the   poet's  craft,  Barnabe  Barnes, 

Barnes  s        confided    to     a  published     sonnet     of    unrestrained 

sonnet,  ^.     .  r-        , 

1593-  fervour  his    conviction  that   Southampton's   eyes  — 

'those  heavenly  lamps'  —  were  the  only  sources  of  true  poetic 

inspiration.     The  sonnet,  which  is  superscribed  '  to  the   Right 

Noble  and  Virtuous  Lord,  Henry,  Earl  of  Southampton,'  runs: 

Receive,  sweet  Lord,  with  thy  thrice  sacred  hand 
(Which  sacred  Muses  make  their  instrument) 
These  worthless  leaves,  which  I  to  thee  present, 

(Sprung  from  a  rude  and  unmanurfed  land) 

That  with  your  countenance  graced,  they  may  withstand 
Hundred-eyed  Envy's  rough  encounterment. 
Whose  patronage  can  give  encouragement 

To  scorn  back-wounding  Zoilus  his  band. 

Vouchsafe,  right  virtuous  Lord,  with  gracious  eyes  — 

Those  heavenly  lamps  which  give  the  Muses  light, 

Which  give  and  take  in  course  that  holy  fire  — 

To  view  my  Muse  with  your  judicial  sight : 

Whom,  when  time  shall  have  tauglit,  by  flight,  to  rise 

Shairto  thy  virtues,  of  much  worth,  aspire. 


SOUTHAMPTON   AS   A   LITERARY   PATRON         385 

Next  year  a  writer  of  greater  power,  Tom  Nash,  betrayed 
little  less  enthusiasm  when  dedicating  to  the  Earl  his  masterly 
„  essay  in  romance,  'The  Life  of  Jack  Wilton.'     He 

Nash's  describes    Southampton,  who    was   then   scarcely  of 

addresses,  ^g^^  ^5  .  ^  dear  lover  and  cherisher  as  well  of  the 
lovers  of  poets  as  of  the  poets  themselves.'  'A  new  brain,'  he 
exclaims,  '  a  new  wit,  a  new  style,  a  new  souj,  will  I  get  me,  to 
canonise  your  name  to  posterity,  if  in  this  my  first  attempt  I  am 
not  taxed  of  presumption.'^  Although  'Jack  Wilton' was  the 
first  book  Nash  formally  dedicated  to  Southampton,  it  is  probable 
that  Nash  had  made  an  earlier  bid  for  the  earl's  patronage.  In 
a  digression  at  the  close  of  his  'Pierce  Pennilesse'  he  grows 
eloquent  in  praise  of  one  whom  he  entitles  '  the  matchless  image 
of  honour  and  magnificent  rewarder  of  vertue,  Jove's  eagle- 
borne  Ganimede.  thrice  noble  Amintas.'  In  a  sonnet  addressed 
to  '  this  renowed  lord,'  who  '  draws  all  hearts  to  his  love.'  Nash 
expresses  regret  that  the  great  poet,  Edmund  Spenser,  had  omitted 
to  celebrate  'so  special  a  pillar  of  nobility'  in  the  series  of  adula- 
tory sonnets  prefixed  to  the  '  Faerie  Queen  ' ;  and  in  the  last  lines 
of  his  sonnet  Nash  suggests  that  Spenser  suppressed  the  noble- 
man's name 

Because  few  words  might  not  comprise  thy  fame.2 

'  See  Nash's  IVorks,  ed.  Grosart,  v.  6.  The  whole  passage  runs:  '  How  wel  or 
ill  I  haue  done  in  it  I  am  ignorant  :  (the  eye  that  sees  round  about  it  selfe  sees  not 
into  it  selfe) :  only  your  Honours  applauding  encouragement  hath  power  to  make  me 
arrogant.  Incomprehensible  is  the  height  of  your  spirit  both  in  hcroical  resolution 
and  matters  of  conceit.  Vnrepriuebly  perisheth  that  booke  whatsoeuer  to  wast 
paper,  which  on  the  diamond  rocke  of  yoor  judgement  disasterly  chanceth  to  be 
shipwrackt.  A  dere  louer  and  cherisher  you  are,  as  well  of  the  louers  of  Poets,  as 
of  Poets  them  selues.  Amongst  their  sacred  number  I  dare  not  ascribe  my  selfe, 
though  now  and  then  I  speak  English:  that  smal  braine  I  haue,  to  no  further  vse  I 
conuert  sane  to  be  kinde  to  my  frends,  and  fatall  to  my  enemies.  A  new  brain,  a 
new  wit,  a  new  stile,  a  new  soule  will  I  get  mee  to  canonize  your  name  to  posteritie, 
if  in  this  my  first  attempt  I  am  not  ta.xed  of  presumption.  Of  your  gracious  fauor 
I  despairs  not,  for  I  am  not  altogether  Fames  out-cast.  .  .  .  Your  Lordship  is  the 
large  spreading  branch  of  renown,  from  whence  these  my  idle  leaues  seeke  to  deriue 
their  whole  nourishing.' 

-  The  complimentary  title  of  '  Amyntas,'  which  was  naturalised  in  English 
literature  by  Abraham  Fraunce's  two  renderings  of  Tasso's  A  minta  —  one  direct  from 
the  Italian  and  the  other  from  the  Latin  version  of  Thomas  Watson  —  was  apparently 
bestowed  by  Spenser  on  the  Earl  of  Derby  in  his  Colin  Clouts  come  Home  again 
(1595);  and  some  critics  assume  that  Nash  referred  in  Pierce  Peiinilesse  to  that 
nobleman  rather  than  to  Southampton.  But  Nash's  comparison  of  his  paragon 
to  Ganymede  suggests  extreme  youth,  and  Southampton  was  nineteen  in  1592, 
2  C 


386 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


Southampton  was  beyond  doubt  the  nobleman  in  question. 
It  is  certain,  too,  that  the  Earl  of  Soutliampton  was  among 
the  young  men  for  whom  Nash,  in  hope  of  gain,  as  he  admitted, 
penned  'amorous  villanellos  and  qui  passas.'  One  of  the  least 
reputable  of  these  efforts  of  Nash  survives  in  an  obscene  love- 
poem  entitled  '  The  Choosing  of  Valentines,'  which  may  be 
dated  in  1595-  This  was  not  only  dedicated  to  Southampton 
in  a  prefatory  sonnet,  but  in  an  epilogue,  again  in  the  form  of  a 
sonnet,  Nash  addressed  his  young  patron  as  his  'friend.'  ^ 

while  Derby  was  thirty-three.  '  Amyntas,'  as  a  complimentary  designation,  was 
widely  used  by  the  poets,  and  was  not  applied  exclusively  to  any  one  patron  of 
letters.  It  was  bestowed  on  the  poet  Watson  hy  Richard  Barnfield  and  by  other 
of  Watson's  panegyrists. 

1  Two  manuscript  copies  of  the  poem,  which  has  not  been  printed,  are  extant 
—  one  among  the  Rawlinson  poetical  manuscripts  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  and  the 
other  among  the  manuscripts  in  the  Inner  Temple  Library  (No.  538).  Mr.  John  S. 
Farmer  has  kindly  sent  me  transcripts  of  the  opening  and  concluding  dedicatory 
sonnets.  The  first,  which  is  inscribed  '  to  the  right  honourable  the  Lord  S[outhamp- 
ton],'  runs: 

Pardon,  sweete  flower  of  matchles  poetrye, 

And  fairest  bud  the  red  rose  euer  bare, 
Although  my  muse,  devorst  from  deeper  care, 

Presents  thee  with  a  wanton  Elegie. 
Ne  blame  my  verse  of  loose  unchastitye 

For  painting  forth  the  things  that  hidden  are. 
Since  all  men  act  what  I  in  speeche  declare, 

Onlie  induced  with  varietie. 
Complaints  and  praises,  every  one  can  write, 

And  passion  out  their  pangs  in  statlie  rimes; 
But  of  loues  pleasures  none  did  euer  write, 
That  have  succeeded  in  theis  latter  times. 
Accept  of  it,  deare  Lord,  in  gentle  parte. 
And  better  lines  ere  long  shall  honor  thee. 
The  poem  follows  in  about  three  hundred  lines,  and  the  manuscript   ends  with   a 
second  sonnet  addressed  by  Nash  to  his  patron  : 

Thus  hath  my  penne  presum'd  to  please  my  friend. 

Oh  mightst  thou  lykewise  please  Apollo's  eye. 
No,  Honor  brookes  no  such  impietie, 

Yet  Ovid's  wanton  muse  did  not  offend. 
He  is  the  fountaine  whence  my  streames  do  flowe  — 

Forgive  me  if  I  speak  as  I  was  taught; 
Alike  to  women,  utter  all  I  knowe, 

As  longing  to  unlade  so  bad  a  fraught. 
My  mynde  once  purg'd  of  such  lascivious  witt, 

With  purifide  words  and  hallowed  verse, 
Thy  praises  in  large  volumes  shall  rehearse. 

That  better  male  thy  grauer  view  befitt. 
Meanwhile  ytt  rests,  you  smile  at  what  I  write 
Or  for  attempting  banish  me  your  sight. 

Tho.  Nash. 


SOUTHAMPTON   AS   A   LITERARY   PATRON         387 

Meanwhile,  in  1595,  the  versatile  Gervase  Markham  in- 
scribed to  Southampton  in  a  sonnet,  his  patriotic  poem  on  Sir 
j^    ,  Richard    Grenville's   glorious    fight   ot^"  the   Azores, 

ham's  son-  Markham  was  not  content  to  acknowledge  with  Barnes 
net,  1595.  |-}^g  inspiriting  force  of  his  patron's  eyes,  but  with 
blasphemous  temerity  asserted  that  the  sweetness  of  his  lips, 
which  stilled  the  music  of  the  spheres,  delighted  the  ear  of 
Almighty  God.  Markham's  sonnet  runs  somewhat  haltingly 
thus : 

Thou  glorious  laurel  of  the  Muses'  hill, 

Whose  e^es  doth  crown  the  most  victorious  pen, 
Bright  lamp  of  virtue,  in  whose  sacred  skill, 

Lives  all  the  bliss  of  ear-enchanting  men, 
From  graver  subjects  of  thy  grave  assays, 

Bend  thy  courageous  thoughts  unto  these  lines  — 
The  grave  from  whence  my  humble  Muse  doth  raise 
True  honour's  spirit  in  her  rough  designs  — 
And  when  the  stubborn  stroke  of  my  harsh  song 
Shall  seasonless  glide  through  Almighty  ears 
Vouchsafe  to  sweet  it  with  thy  blessed  tongue 
■Whose  well-tuned  sound  stills  music  in  the  spheres; 

So  shall  my  tragic  lays  be  blest  by  thee 

And  from  thy  lips  suck  their  eternity. 


Subsequently  Florio,  in  associating  the  Earl's  name  with  his 
great  Italian-English  dictionary  —  the  'World  of  Words'  — 
p.    •  ,  more  soberly  defined  the  Earl's  place  in  the  republic 

address,  of  letters  when  he  wrote  :  'As  to  me  and  many  more 
1598.  the  glorious  and  gracious  sunshine  of  your  honour 

hath  infused  light  and  life.' 

The  most  notable  contribution  to  this  chorus  of  praise 
is  to  be  found,  as  I  have  already  shown,  in  Shakespeare's 
'  Sonnets.'  The  same  note  of  eulogy  was  sounded  by  men  of 
letters  until  Southampton's  death.  When  he  was  released 
The  con-  from  prison  on  James  I's  accession  in  April  1603, 
gratula-  his  praises  in  poets'  mouths  were  especially  abun- 
poet-i  in  dant.  Not  only  was  that  grateful  incident  cele- 
1603.  brated    by   Shakespeare    in    what    is    probably   the 

latest  of  his  sonnets  (No.  cvii.),  but  Samuel  Daniel  and  John 
Davies  of  Hereford   offered   the   Earl   congratulation   in    more 


388  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

prolonged   strains.      Daniel   addressed   to    Southampton    many 
lines  like  these : 

The  world  had  never  taken  so  full  note 

Of  what  thou  art,  hadst  thou  not  been  undone : 

And  only  thy  affliction  hath  begot 

More  fame  than  thy  best  fortunes  could  have  won ; 

For  ever  by  adversity  are  wrought 
The  greatest  works  of  admiration  ; 

And  all  the  fair  examples  of  renown 

Out  of  distress  and  misery  are  grown  .  .  . 

Only  the  best-compos'd  and  worthiest  hearts 

God  sets  to  act  the  hard'st  and  constant'st  parts.l 

Davies  was  more  jubilant : 

Now  wisest  men  with  mirth  do  seem  stark  mad, 
And  cannot  choose  —  their  hearts  are  all  so  glad. 
Then  let's  be  merry  in  our  God  and  King, 
That  made  us  merry,  being  ill  bestead. 
Southampton,  up  thy  cap  to  Heaven  fling. 
And  on  the  viol  there  sweet  praises  sing, 
For  he  is  come  that  grace  to  all  doth  bring.^ 

Many  like  praises,  sorne  of  later  date,  by  Henry  Locke  (or 
Lok),  George  Chapman,  Josluia  Sylvester,  Richard  Braithwaite, 
George  Wither,  Sir  John  Beaumont,  and  others  could  be 
quoted.  Beaumont,  on  Southampton's  death,  wrote  an  elegy 
which  panegyrises  him  in  the  varied  capacities  of  warrior, 
councillor,  courtier,  father,  and  husband.  But  it  is  as  a  literary 
patron  that  Beaumont  insists  that  he  chiefly  deserves  remem- 
brance : 

I  keep  that  glory  last  which  is  the  best. 
The  love  of  learning  which  he  oft  expressed 
In  conversation,  and  respect  to  those 
Who  had  a  name  in  arts,  in  verse  or  prose. 


'  Daniel's  Certaine  Epistles,  1603;  see  Daniel's  ]Vorks,cdL.  Grosart,  i.  216  seq. 

2  See  Preface  to  Davies's  Microcosmos,  1603  (Davies's  Works,  ed.  Grosart,  i  14) . 
At  the  end  of  Davies's  Microcosmos  there  is  also  a  congratulatory  sonnet  addressed 
to  Southampton  on  his  liberation  {ib.  p.  96),  beginning: 

Welcome  to  shore,  unhappy-happy  Lord, 
From  the  deep  seas  of  danger  and  distress. 
There  like  thou  wast  to  be  thrown  overboard 
In  every  storm  of  disconlentedness. 


SOUTHAMPTON   AS   A   LITERARY   PATRON         389 

To  the  same  effect  are  some  twenty  poems  whicli  were  piib- 

jished  in  1624,  just  after  Southampton's  death,  in  a  volume  en- 

„,     .  titled  '  Teares  of  the  Isle  of  Wiijht,  shed  on  the  Tombe 

Elegies  on  .  '^ 

Southamp-    of  their  most  noble  valorous  and  loving  Captaine  and 
ton.  Governour,  the  right  honorable  Henrie,  Earl  of  South- 

ampton.'    The  keynote  is  struck  in  the  opening  stanza  of  the 
first  poem  by  one  Francis  Beale  : 

Ye  famous  poets  of  the  southern  isle, 
Strain  forth  the  raptures  of  your  tragic  muse, 
And  with  your  Laureate  pens  come  and  compile 
The  praises  due  to  this  great  Lord  :  peruse 
His  globe  of  worth,  and  eke  his  virtues  brave, 
Like  learned  Maroes  at  Mecasnas's  grave. 


390  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


THE    TRUE  HISTORY  OF   THOMAS   THORPE 
AND  'MR.    IV.    H' 

In  1598  Francis  Aleres  enumerated  among  Shakespeare^s  best 
known  works  his  'sugar'd  sonnets  among  his  private  friends.' 
None  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  are  known  to  have  been  in 
print  when  i\Ieres  wrote,  but  they  were  doubtless  in  circulation 
in  manuscript.  In  1599  two  of  them  were  printed  for  the  first 
time  by  the  piratical  publisher,  William  Jaggard,  in 
catfon^of^'  the  opening  pages  of  the  first  edition  of  'The 
the  sonnets  Passionate  Pilgrim.'  On  January  3,  1 599-1 600, 
m  1609.  Eleazar  Edgar,  a  publisher  of  small  account,  obtained 
a  license  for  the  publication  of  a  work  bearing  the  title,  'A 
Booke  called  Amours  by  J.  D.,  with  certein  other  Sonnetes  by 
W.  S.'  No  book  answering  this  description  is  extant.  In 
any  case  it  is  doubtful  if  Edgar's  venture  concerned  Shake- 
speare's 'Sonnets.'  It  is  more  probable  that  his  -W.  S.'  was 
William  Smith,  who  had  published  a  collection  of  sonnets 
entitled  'Chloris'  in  1596.1  On  May  20,  1609,  a  license  for  the 
publication  of  Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets '  was  granted  by  the 
Stationers'  Company  to  a  publisher  named  Thomas  Thorpe, 
and  shortly  afterwards  the  complete  collection  as  they  have 
reached  us  was  published  by  Thorpe  for  the  first   time.     To 

1  '  Amours  of  J.  D.'  were  doubtless  sonnets  by  Sir  John  Davies,  of  which  only  a 
few  have  reached  us.  There  is  no  ground  for  J.  P.  Collier's  suggestion  that  J.  D. 
was  a  misprint  for  M.  D.,  i.e.  Michael  Drayton,  who  gave  the  first  edition  of  his 
sonnets  in  1594  the  title  of  Amairs.  That  word  was  in  France  the  common 
designation  of  collections  of  sonnets  (cf.  Drayton's  Poems,  ed.  Collier,  Roxburghe 
Club,  p.  xxv). 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.   W.    H.'  391 

the   volume    Thorpe    prefixed    a    dedication  in    the    following 
terms : 

TO  THE  ONLIE  BEGETTER  OF 

THESE   INSUING   SONNETS 

MR.   W.   H.,    ALL  HAPPINESSE 

AND  THAT   ETERNITIE 

PROMISED 

BY 

OUR  EVER-LIVING   POET 

WISHETH 

THE   WELL-WISHING 

ADVENTURER   IN 

SETTING 

FORTH 

T.  T, 

The  words  are  fantastically  arranged.  In  ordinary  gram- 
matical order  they  would  run  :  '  The  well-wishing  adventurer 
in  setting  forth  [i.e.  the  publisher]  T[homas]  T[horpe]  wisheth 
Mr.  VV.  H.,  the  only  begetter  of  these  ensuing  sonnets,  all 
happiness  and  that  eternity  promised  by  our  ever-living  poet.' 

Few  books  of  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century  were 
ushered  into  the  world  without  a  dedication.  In  most  cases  it  was 
the  work  of  the  author,  but  numerous  volumes,  besides  Shake- 
speare's '  Sonnets,'  are  extant  in  which  the  publisher  (and 
not  the  author)  fills  the  rd/e  of  dedicator.  The  cause  of  the 
substitution  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  signing  of  the  dedication 
was  an  assertion  of  full  and  responsible  ownership  in  the  pub- 
lication, and  the  publisher  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime  was  the 
full  and  responsible  owner  of  a  publication  quite  as  often  as  the 
author.  The  modern  conception  of  copyright  had  not  yet  been 
evolved.  Whoever  in  the  sixteenth  or  early  seventeenth  century 
was  in  actual  possession  of  a  manuscript  was  for  practical 
purposes  its  full  and  responsible  owner.  Literary  work  largely 
circulated  in  manuscript.^  Scriveners  made  a  precarious  liveli- 
hood by  multiplying  written  copies,  and  an  enterprising  pub- 
lisher had  many  opportunities  of  becoming  the  owner  of  a 
popular  book  without  the  author's  sanction  or  knowledge. 
When  a  volume  in  the  reigns  of  Elizabeth  or  James  I  was 
published  independently  of  the  author,  the  publisher  exercised 

1  See  note  to  p.  88,  supra. 


392  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

unchallenged  all  the  owner's  rights,  not  the  least  valued  of 
Publishers'  '^^"^^•^^  was  that  of  choosing  the  patron  of  the  enter- 
dedica-  prise,    and   of    penning   the    dedicatory  compliment 

tions.  above    his    signature.       Occasionally    circumstances 

might  speciously  justify  the  publisher's  appearance  in  the  guise 
of  a  dedicator.  In  the  case  of  a  posthumous  book  it  sometimes 
happened  that  the  author's  friends  renounced  ownership  or 
neglected  to  assert  it.  In  other  instances,  the  absence  of  an 
author  from  London  while  his  work  was  passing  through  the 
press  might  throw  on  the  publisher  the  task  of  supplying  the 
dedication  without  exposing  him  to  any  charge  of  sharp  practice. 
But  as  a  rule  one  of  only  two  inferences  is  possible  when  a  pub- 
lisher's name  figured  at  the  foot  of  a  dedicatory  epistle :  either 
the  author  was  ignorant  of  the  publisher's  design,  or  he  had  re- 
fused to  countenance  it,  and  was  openly  defied.  In  the  case  of 
Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets '  it  may  safely  be  assumed  that  Shake- 
speare received  no  notice  of  Thorpe's  intention  of  publishing 
the  work,  and  that  it  was  owing  to  the  author's  ignorance  of 
the  design  that  the  dedication  was  composed  and  signed  by  the 
'  well-wishing  adventurer  in  setting  forth.' 

But  whether  author  or  publisher  chose  the  patron  of  his 
wares,  the  choice  was  determined  by  much  the  same  considera- 
tions. Self-interest  was  the  principle  underlying  transactions 
between  literary  patron  and  protege.  Publisher,  like  author, 
commonly  chose  as  patron  a  man  or  woman  of  wealth  and 
social  influence  who  might  be  expected  to  acknowledge  the 
compliment  either  by  pecuniary  reward  or  by  friendly  advertise- 
ment of  the  volume  in  their  own  social  circle.  At  times  the 
publisher,  slightly  extending  the  field  of  choice,  selected  a 
personal  friend  or  mercantile  acquaintance  who  had  rendered 
him  some  service  in  trade  or  private  life,  and  was  likely  to 
appreciate  such  general  expressions  of  good  will  as  were 
the  accepted  topic  of  dedications.  Nothing  that  was  fantastic 
or  mysterious  entered  into  the  Elizabethan  or  the  Jacobean 
publishers'  shrewd  schemes  of  business,  and  it  may  be  asserted 
with  confidence  that  it  was  under  the  everyday  prosaic  conditions 
of  current  literary  traffic  that  the  publisher  Thorpe  selected 
'  Mr.  W.  H.'  as  the  patron  of  the  original  edition  of  Shake- 
speare's 'Sonnets.' 


THOMAS   THORPE   AND    'MR.   W.   H.'  393 

A  study  of  Thorpe's  character  and  career  clears  the  point 
of  doubt.  Thorpe  has  been  described  as  a  native  of  Warwick- 
Thorpe's  shire,  Shakespeare's  county,  and  a  man  eminent  in  his 
early  life.  profession.  He  was  neither  of  these  things.  He 
was  a  native  of  Barnet  in  Middlesex,  where  his  father  kept  an 
inn,  and  he  himself  through  thirty  years'  experience  of  the  book 
trade  held  his  own  with  difficulty  in  its  humblest  ranks.  He 
enjoyed  the  customary  preliminary  training.^  At  midsummer 
1584  he  was  apprenticed  for  nine  years  to  a  reputable  printer 
and  stationer,  Richard  Watkins.'-  Nearly  ten  years  later  he 
took  up  the  freedom  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  and  was 
thereby  qualified  to  set  up  as  a  publisher  on  his  own  account. ^ 
He  was  not  destitute  of  a  taste  for  literature ;  he  knew  scraps 
of  Latin,  and  recognised  a  good  manuscript  when  he  saw  one. 
But  the  ranks  of  London  publishers  were  overcrowded,  and 
such  accomplishments  as  Thorpe  possessed  were  poor  com- 
pensation for  a  lack  of  capital  or  of  family  connections  among 
those  already  established  in  the  trade.*  For  many  years  he 
contented  himself  with  an  obscure  situation  as  assistant  or  clerk 
to  a  stationer  more  favourably  placed. 

It  was  as  the  self-appointed  procurer   and  owner  of  an  un- 

printed  manuscript — a  recognised  role  for  novices  to  fill  in  the  book 

trade  of  the  period  —  that  Thorpe  made  his  first  distinguishable 

appearance   on  the  stage  of    literary  history.      In    1600   there 

fell  into  his  hands  in  an  unexplained  manner  a  written  copy  of 

His  owner-    Marlowe's  unprinted  translation  of  the  first  book  of 

ship  of  the     '  Lucan.'   Thorpe  confided  his  good  fortune  to  Edward 

manuscript    BJount,  then  a  stationer's  assistant  like  himself,  but 
of  Mar-  .  '  ' 

lowe's  with  better  prospects.     Blount  had  already  achieved 

'  Lucan.        -^   modest  success  in  the  same  capacity  of  procurer 

or  picker-up  of  neglected  '  copy.'  ^    In  1598  he  became  proprietor 

of   Marlowe's  unfinished  and  unpublished   •  Hero  and  Leander,' 

and   found   among    better-equipped    friends    in   the    trade    both 

'  The  details  of  his  career  are  drawn  from  Mr.  Arber's  Tyanscript  of  the 
Registers  of  the  Stationers'  Company. 

2  Arber,  ii.  124.  2  lb.  ii.  713. 

*  A  younger  brother,  Richard,  was  apprenticed  to  a  stationer,  Martin  Ensor,  for 
seven  years  from  August  24,  1596,  but  he  disappeared  before  gaining  the  freedom  of 
the  Company,  either  dying  young  or  seeking  another  occupation  (cf.  Arber's 
Transcript,  ii.  213). 

^  Cf  Bibliographica,  i.  474-98,  where  I  have  given  an  account  of  Blount's  pro- 
fessional career  in  a  paper  called  '  An  Elizabethan  Bookseller.' 


394  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

a    printer    and    a    publisher    for    his    treasure-trove.      Blount 

good-naturedly    interested    himself  in   Thorpe's   'find,'   and   it 

was  through  Blount's  good  offices  that  Peter  Short  undertook 

to    print    Thorpe's    manuscript    of    Marlowe's     *  Lucan,'     and 

Walter   Burre    agreed    to    sell    it    at    his   shop   in    St.    Paul's 

Churchyard.     As  owner  of  the  manuscript  Thorpe  exerted  the 

right  of  choosing  a  patron  for  the  venture  and  of  supplying  the 

Hisdedica-    dedicatory   epistle.     The   patron   of   his    choice  was 

tory  ad-        his  friend  Blount,  and  he   made  the  dedication  the 

dress  to  vehicle  of  his  gratitude  for  the  assistance  he  had  just 
Edward  .  ^  ^  .       .  -^ 

Hlount  in       received.     The  style  of  the  dedication  was  somewhat 

1600.  bombastic,  but  Thorpe  showed  a  literary  sense  when 

he  designated  Marlowe  'that  pure  elemental  wit,'  and  a  good 
deal  of  dry  humour  in  offering  to  '  his  kind  and  true  friend ' 
Blount  'some  few  instructions'  whereby  he  might  accom- 
modate himself  to  the  unaccustomed  ro/e  of  patron. ^  For  the 
conventional  type  of  patron  Thorpe  disavowed  respect.  He 
preferred  to  place  himself  under  the  protection  of  a  friend  in 
the  trade  whose  good  will  had  already  stood  him  in  good  stead, 
and  was  capable  of  benefiting  him  hereafter. 

This  venture  laid  the  foundation  of  Thorpe's  fortunes.  Three 
years  later  he  was  able  to  place  his  own  name  on  the  title-page 
of  two  humbler  literary  prizes  —  each  an  insignificant  pamphlet 
on  current  events.'^  Thenceforth  for  a  dozen  years  his  name 
reappeared  annually  on  one,  two,  or  three  volumes.  After  1614 
his  operations  were  few  and  far  between,  and  they  ceased 
altogether  in  1624.  He  seems  to  have  ended  his  days  in  poverty, 
and  he  has  been  identified  with  the  Thomas  Thorpe  who  was 
granted  an  almsroom  in  the  hospital  of  Ewelme,  Oxfordshire, 
December  3,  1635.^ 

^  Thorpe  gives  a  sarcastic  description  of  a  typical  patron,  and  amply  attests  the 
purely  commercial  relations  ordinarily  subsisting  between  dedicator  and  dedicatee. 
'  When  I  bring  you  the  book,'  he  advises  Blount,  '  take  physic  and  keep  state.  As- 
sign me  a  time  by  your  man  to  come  again.  .  .  .  Censure  scornfully  enough  and 
somewhat  like  a  traveller.  Commend  nothing  lest  you  discredit  your  (that  which 
you  would  seem  to  have)  judgment.  .  .  .  One  special  virtue  in  our  patrons  of  these 
days  I  have  promised  myself  you  shall  fit  excellently,  which  is  to  give  nothing.' 
Finally  Thorpe,  changing  his  tone,  challenges  his  patron's  love  '  both  in  this  and,  I 
hope,  many  more  succeeding  offices.' 

-  One  gave  an  account  of  the  East  India  Company's  fleet  ;  the  other  reported 
a  speech  delivered  by  Richard  Martin,  M.P.,  to  James  I  at  Stamford  Hill  during 
the  royal  progress  to  London. 

3  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic  Series,  1635,  p.  527. 


THOMAS  THORPE  AND   'MR.   \V.   H.'  395 

Thorpe  was  associated  with  the  publication  of  twenty-nine 
volumes  in  all/  including  Marlowe's  '  Lucan ' ;  but  in  almost  all 
his  operations  his  personal  energies  were  confined,  as  in  his 
Character  i^iitial  enterprise,  to  procuring  the  manuscript.  For 
of  his  a   short   period   in    1608   he   occupied   a  shop.  The 

business.  Tiger's  Head,  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  and  the  fact 
was  duly  announced  on  the  title-pages  of  three  publications 
which  he  issued  in  that  year.-  But  his  other  undertakings  were 
described  on  their  title-pages  as  printed  for  him  by  one  stationer 
and  sold  for  him  by  another ;  and  when  any  address  found 
mention  at  all,  it  was  the  shopkeeper's  address,  and  not  his 
own.  He  never  enjoyed  in  permanence  the  profits  or  dignity 
of  printing  his  '  copy '  at  a  press  of  his  own,  or  selling  books  on 
premises  of  his  own,  and  he  can  claim  the  distinction  of  having 
pursued  in  this  homeless  fashion  the  well-defined  profession  of 
procurer  of  manuscripts  for  a  longer  period  than  any  other 
known  member  of  the  Stationers'  Company.  Though  many 
others  began  their  career  in  that  capacity,  all  except  Thorpe, 
as  far  as  they  can  be  traced,  either  developed  into  printers  or 
booksellers,  or,  failing  in  that,  betook  themselves  to  other  trades. 
Very  few  of  his  wares  does  Thorpe  appear  to  have  pro- 
cured direct  from  the  authors.  It  is  true  that  between  1605 
and  161 1  there  were  issued  under  his  auspices  some  eight 
volumes  of  genuine  literary  value,  including,  besides  Shakespeare's 
*  Sonnets,'  three  plays  by  Chapman,^  four  works  of  Ben  Jonson, 

'  Two  bore  his  name  on  the  title-page  in  1603;  one  in  1604;  two  in  1605;  two 
in  1606;  two  in  1607;  three  in  1608;  one  in  1609  {i.e.  the  Sonnets);  three  in 
1610  (i.e.  H istrio-ntasirix ,  or  the  Playwright,  as  well  as  Healey's  translations) ; 
two  in  1611;  one  in  1612;  three  in  1613;  two  in  1614;  two  in  1616;  one  in  1618; 
and  finally  one  in  1624.  The  last  was  a  new  edition  of  George  Chapman's 
Cotispiracie  and  Tragedie  of  Charles  Ditke  of  Byron,  which  Thorpe  first  published 
in  1608. 

2 They  were  IVits  A. B.C.  or  a  centurie  of  Epigrams  (anon.),  by  R.  West  of 
Magdalen  College,  Oxford  (a  copy  is  in  the  Bodleian  Library);  Chapman's  Byron, 
and  Jonson's  lifasgues  of  Blackness  and  Beauty. 

■"Chapman  and  Jonson  were  ver>'  voluminous  authors,  and  their  works  were 
sought  after  by  almost  all  the  publishers  of  London,  many  of  whom  were  successful 
in  launching  one  or  two  with  or  without  the  author's  sanction.  Thorpe  seems  to 
have  taken  particular  care  with  Jonson's  books,  but  none  of  Jonson's  works  fell  into 
Thorpe's  hands  before  1605  or  after  1608,  a  minute  fmction  of  Jonson's  literary 
life.  It  is  significant  that  the  author's  dedication  -  the  one  certain  mark  of  publica- 
tion with  the  author's  sanction  —  appears  in  only  one  of  the  three  plays  by  Chapman 
that  Thorpe  issued,  viz.  in  Byron.  One  or  two  copies  of  Thorpe's  impression  of 
All  Fools  have  a  dedication  by  the  author,  but  it  is  absent  from  most  of  them.     No 


396  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

and  Coiyat's  '  Odcombian  Banquet.'  But  the  taint  of  mysterious 
origin  attached  to  most  of  his  literary  properties.  He  doubtless 
owed  them  to  the  exchange  of  a  few  pence  or  shillings  with  a 
scrivener's  hireling ;  and  the  transaction  was  not  one  of  which 
the  author  had  cognisance. 

It  is  quite  plain  that  no  negotiation  with  the  author  preceded 
the  formation  of  Thorpe's  resolve  to  publish  for  the  first  time 
Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets  '  in  i6og.  Had  Shakespeare  associated 
himself  with  the  enterprise,  the  world  would  fortunately  have 
been  spared  Thorpe's  dedication  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  'T.  T.'s' 
place  would  have  been  filled  by  '  W.  S.'  The  whole  transaction 
was  in  Thorpe's  vein.  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  had  been 
Shake-  already  circulating  in  manuscript  for  eleven  years ; 

speare's  only  two  had  as  yet  been  printed,  and  those  were 
at  publish-  issued  by  the  pirate  publisher,  William  Jaggard,  in 
ers'  hands,  the  fraudulently  christened  volume  '  The  Passionate 
Pilgrim,  by  William  Shakespeare,'  in  1599.  Shakespeare,  ex- 
cept in  the  case  of  his  two  narrative  poems,  showed  utter  in- 
difference to  all  questions  touching  the  publication  of  his 
works.  Of  the  sixteen  plays  of  his  that  were  published  in  his 
lifetime,  not  one  was  printed  with  his  sanction.  He  made  no 
audible  protest  when  seven  contemptible  dramas  in  which  he 
had  no  hand  were  published  with  his  name  or  initials  on  the 
title-page  while  his  fame  was  at  its  height.  With  only  one 
publisher  of  his  time,  Richard  Field,  his  fellow-townsman,  who 
was  responsible  for  the  issue  of  '  Venus '  and  '  Lucrece,'  is  it 
likely  that  he  came  into  personal  relations,  and  there  is  nothing 
to  show  that  he  maintained  relations  with  Field  after  the  pub- 
lication of 'Lucrece'  in  1594. 

In  fitting  accord  with  the  circumstance  that  the  publication 
of  the  '  Sonnets '  was  a  tradesman's  venture  which  ignored  the 
author's  feelings  and  rights,  Thorpe  in  both  the  entry  of  the 
book  in  the  '  Stationers'  Registers '  and  on  its  title-page 
brusquely  designated  it  '  Shakespeares  Sonnets,'  instead  of 
following  the  more  urbane  collocation  of  words  invariably 
adopted  by  living  authors,  viz.  '  Sonnets  by  William  Shake- 
speare.' 

known  copy  of  Thorpe's  edition  of  Chapman's  Gentleman  Usher  has  any  dedica- 
tion. 


THOMAS  THORPE   AND   'MR.    W.    H.'  397 

In  framing  the  dedication  Thorpe  followed  established 
precedent.  Initials  run  riot  over  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
The  use  of  books.  Printers  and  publishers,  authors  and  con- 
dedications  tributors  of  prefatory  commendations,  were  all  in  the 
of  Eliza-        habit  of  masking  themselves  behind  such  symbols. 

betlian  and    patrons   figured  under  initials  in   dedications  some- 

Jacobt  an  •  ° 

booi<s.  what  less  frequently  than  other  sharers  in  the  book's 

production.     But  the  conditions  determining  the  employment  of 

initials  in  that  relation  were  well  defined.     The  employment  of 

initials  in  a  dedication  was  a  recognised  mark  of  a  close  friendship 

or  intimacy  between  patron  and  dedicator.     It  was  a  sign  that 

the  patron's  fame  was  limited  to  a  small  circle,  and  that  the 

revelation  of  his  full  name  was  not  a  matter  of  interest  to  a  wide 

public.     Such  are  the  dominant  notes  of  almost  all  the  extant 

dedications  in  which  the   patron   is  addressed  by  his  initials. 

In    1598    Samuel    Rowlands   addressed   the   dedication   of    his 

'  Betraying   of  Christ '   to   his   '  deare   affected  friend  Maister 

H.  W.,  gentleman.'     An  edition  of  Robert  Southwell's  'Short 

Rule  of  Life '  which  appeared  in  the  same  year  bore  a  dedication 

addressed  -to   my  deare   affected  friend  AI.    \i.e.  Mr.]   D.   S., 

gentleman.'     The  poet  Richard  Barnfield  also  in  the  same  year 

dedicated  the  opening  sonnet  in  his  'Poems  in  Divers  Humours' 

to  his  ^friend  Maister  R.  L.'     In  161 7  Dunstan  Gale  dedicated 

a  poem,  '  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,'  to  the  *  worshipfuU  his   verie 

friend  V).  (i.e.  Dr.]  B.  H.' 1 

There  was  nothing   exceptional  in   the  words   of  greeting 

which   Thorpe   addressed   to   his   patron  'Mr.  W.    H.'     They 

followed  a  widely  adopted  formula.      Dedications  of  the  time 

usually  consisted  of  two  distinct  parts.     There  was  a  dedicatory 

epistle,  which    might  touch  at   any  length,  in  either  verse  or 

prose,  on  the  subject  of  the  book  and  the  writer's  relations  with 

1  Many  other  instances  of  initials  figuring  in  dedications  under  slightly  different 
circumstances  will  occur  to  bibliographers,  but  all,  on  examination,  point  to  the 
existence  of  a  close  intimacy  between  dedicator  and  dedicatee.  R.  S.'s  \_i.e.  possibly 
Richard  Stafford's]  '  Epistle  dedicatorie '  before  his  Heraclitus  (Oxford,  1609)  was 
inscribed  '  to  his  much  honoured  father  S.  F.  S.'  An  Apologie  for  Women,  or  an 
Opposition^toMr.  D.  G.  his  assertion  .  .  .  by  W.  H.  of  Ex.  in  Ox.  (Oxford,  1609), 
was  dedicated  to  '  the  honourable  and  right  vertuous  ladie,  the  Ladie  M.  H.'  This 
volume,  published  in  the  same  year  as  Shakespeare's  Sonnets,  offers  a  pertinent 
example  of  the  generous  freedom  with  which  initials  were  scattered  over  the  pre- 
liminary pages  of  books  of  the  day. 


398  WILLIAM    SIIAKESrEARE 

his  patron.  But  there  was  usually,  in  addition,  a  preliminary 
salutation  confined  to  such  a  single  sentence  as  Thorpe  dis- 
Frequency  played  on  the  first  page  of  his  edition  of  Shake- 
for^happi-  speare's  sonnets.  In  that  preliminary  sentence  the 
ness '  and      dedicator    habitually    '  wisheth '    his   patron   one    or 

'eternity  in  ,.j^Qj.g  ^f  guch  blessings  as  health,  long  li/e,  happiness, 
dedicatory  .  *  .^         '       ^'■ 

greetings.  and  eternity.  '  Al  perseverance  with  soules  happi- 
ness '  Thomas  Powell  '  wisheth  '  the  Countess  of  Kildare  on 
the  first  page  of  his  'Passionate  Poet'  in  1601.  'All  happi- 
nes '  is  the  greeting  of  Thomas  Watson,  the  sonnetteer,  to  his 
patron,  the  Earl  of  Oxford,  on  the  threshold  of  Watson's  '  Pas- 
sionate Century  of  Love.'  There  is  hardly  a  book  published  by 
Robert  Greene  between  1580  and  1592  that  does  not  open  with 
an  adjuration   before  the  dedicatory  epistle  in   the  form  :  '  To 

Robert  Greene  wisheth  increase  of  honour  with  the 

full  fruition  of  perfect  felicity.' 

Thorpe  in  Shakespeare's  sonnets  left  the  salutation  to  stand 
alone,  and  omitted  the  supplement  of  a  dedicatory  epistle ; 
but  this,  too,  was  not  unusual.  There  exists  an  abundance 
of  contemporary  examples  of  the  dedicatory  salutation  without 
the  sequel  of  the  dedicatory  epistle.  Edmund  Spenser's 
dedication  of  the  '  Faerie  Queen '  to  Elizabeth  consists 
solely  of  the  salutation  in  the  form  of  an  assurance  that  the 
writer  'consecrates  these  his  labours  to  live  with  the  eter- 
nitie  of  her  fame.'  Michael  Drayton  in  both  his  '  Idea, 
The  Shepheard's  Garland'  (1593),  and  in  his  '  Poemes  Lyrick 
and  Pastorall '  (1609),  confined  his  address  to  his  patron  to  a 
single  sentence  of  salutation.^  Richard  Braithwaite  in  161 1 
exclusively  saluted  the  patron  of  his  '  Golden  Fleece  '  with  '  the 
continuance  of  God's  temporall  blessings  in  this  life,  with  the 
crowne  of  immortalitie  in  the  world  to  come ; '  while  in  like 
manner  he  greeted  the  patron  of  his  '  Sonnets  and  Madrigals ' 
in  the  same  year  with  '  the  prosperitie  of  times  successe  in  this 
life,  with  the  reward  of  eternitie  in  the  world  to  come.'  It  is 
'happiness'  and  'eternity,'  or  an  equivalent  parajDhrase,  that  had 
the  widest  vogue  among  the  good  wishes  with  which  the  dedi- 

*  In  the  volume  of  1593  the  words  run:  '  To  the  noble  and  valorous  gentleman 
Master  Robert  Dudley,  enriched  with  all  vertues  of  the  minde  and  worthy  of  all 
honorable  desert.     Your  most  atfettionate  and  devoted  Michael  Drayton.' 


THOMAS  THORPE   AND   'MR.   W.    H.'  399 

cator  in  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  besought 
his  patron's  favour  on  the  first  page  of  his  book.  But 
Thorpe  was  too  self-assertive  to  be  a  slavish  imitator. 
His  addiction  to  bombast  and  his  elementary  appreciation  of 
literature  recommended  to  him  the  practice  of  incorporating  in 
his  dedicatory  salutation  some  high-sounding  embellishments 
of  the  accepted  formula  suggested  by  his  author's  writing. 1  In 
his  dedication  of  the  'Sonnets'  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  he  grafted  on 
the  common  formula  a  reference  to  the  immortality  which 
Shakespeare,  after  the  habit  of  contemporary  sonnetteers, 
promised  the  hero  of  his  sonnets  in  the  pages  that  succeeded. 
With  characteristic  magniloquence,  Thorpe  added  the  decora- 
tive and  supererogatory  phrase,  '  promised  by  our  ever-living 
poet,'  to  the  conventional  dedicatory  wish  for  his  patron's  '  all 
happiness'  and  'eternitie.'- 

Thorpe,  as  far  as  is  known,  penned  only  one  dedication 
before  that  to  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets.'  His  dedicatory 
experience  was  previously  limited  to  the  inscription  of  Marlowe's 
'  Lucan '  in  1600  to  Blount,  his  friend  in  the  trade.  Three 
Five  dedi-  dedications  by  Thorpe  survive  of  a  date  subsequent 
cations  by  to  the  issue  of  the  '  Sonnets.'  One  of  these  is 
Thorpe.  dedicated  to  John  Florio,  and  the  other  two  to  the 
Earl   of  Pembroke.^     But   these  three  dedications  all  prefaced 

1  In  1610,  in  dedicating  Si.  Augustine,  Of  the  Citie  of  God  to  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  Thorpe  awkvv.irdly  describes  the  subject-matter  as  '  a  desired  citie  sure 
in  heaven,'  and  assigns  to  '  St.  Augustine  and  his  commentator  Vives '  a  'savour  of 
the  secular.'  In  the  same  year,  in  dedicating  Epictetus^ s  Matiuall  to  Florio,  he 
bombastically  pronounces  the  book  to  be  '  the  hand  to  philosophy  ;  the  instrument  of 
instruments  ;  as  Nature  greatest  in  the  least  ;  as  Homer's  Ilias  in  a  nutshell  ;  in 
lesse  compasse  more  cunning.'  For  other  examples  of  Thorpe's  pretentious,  half- 
educated,  and  ungrammatical  style,  see  p.  403,  «.  2. 

"  The  suggestion  is  often  made  that  the  only  parallel  to  Thorpe's  salutation  of 
happiness  is  met  with  in  George  Wither's  Abuses  Whipt  atid  Stript  (London,  1613). 
There  the  dedicatorj-  epistle  is  prefaced  by  the  ironical  salutation  '  To  himselfe 
G.  W.  wisheth  all  happinesse.'  It  is  further  asserted  that  Wither  had  probably 
Thoipe's  dedication  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  in  view  when  he  wrote  that  satirical  sentence. 
It  will  now  be  recognised  that  Wither  aimed  very  gently  at  no  identifiable  book, 
but  at  a  feature  common  to  scores  of  books.  Since  his  Abuses  was  printed  by 
George  Eld  and  sold  by  Francis  Burton  —  the  printer  and  publisher  concerned 
in  1606  in  the  publication  of  '  W.  H.'s'  Southwell  manuscript  —  there  is  a 
bare  chance  that  Wither  had  in  mind  '  W.  H.'s'  greeting  of  Mathew  Saunders, 
but  fifty  recently  published  volumes  would  have  supplied  him  with  similar  hints. 

'  Thorpe  dedicated  to  Florio  Epicietus  his  Manual!,  and  Cebes  his  Table,  out 


400  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

volumes  of  translations  by  one  John  Healey,  whose  manuscripts 

had    become   Thorpe's  prey  after  the  author  had  emigrated  to 

Virginia,  where  he  died  shortly  after  landing.     Thorpe  chose,  he 

tells  us,  Florio  and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  as  patrons  of  Healey's 

unprinted     manuscripts    because    they    had    been    patrons    of 

Healey  before  his  expatriation  and  death.     There  is  evidence  to 

prove  that  in  choosing  a  patron  for  the  '  Sonnets,'  and  penning 

a  dedication  for  the  second  time,  he  pursued  the  exact  procedure 

that  lie  had  followed  —  deliberately  and  for  reasons  that  he  fully 

stated  —  in  his  first  and  only  preceding  dedicatory  venture.     He 

chose   his   patron   from   the  circle    of  his  trade  associates,  and 

it    must   have   been   because   his   patron  was  a  personal  friend 

that  he  addressed  him  by  his  initials,  '  W.  H.' 

Shakespeare's  '  Sonnets'  is  not  the  only  volume  of  the  period 

in  the  introductory  pages  of  which  the  initials  'W.  H.'  play  a 

'  W  H  '        prominent   part.     In    i6o6   one  who  concealed  him- 

sisjns  dedi-    self  under  the  same  letters  performed  for  '  A  Foure- 

cation  of        fould  Meditation  '  (a  collection  of  pious  poems  which 

bouthwell  s  ,,,ir- 

poems  in       the  Jesuit  Robert  Southwell  left  in  manuscript  at  his 

1606.  death)   the  identical  service  that  Thorpe  performed 

for  Marlowe's  '  Lucan'  in  1600,  and  for  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets' 
in  1609.  In  1606  Southwell's  manuscript  fell  into  the  hands 
of  this  •  W.  H.,'  and  he  published  it  through  the  agency  of  the 
printer,  George  Eld,  and  of  an  insignificant  bookseller,  Francis 
Burton.  1  '  W.  H.,'  in  his  capacity  of  owner,  supplied  the  dedi- 
cation with  his  own  pen  under  his  initials.  Of  the  Jesuit's  newly 
recovered  poems  'W.  H.'  wrote,  'Long  have  they  lien  hidden 
in  obscuritie,  and  haply  had  never  seene  the  light,  had  not  a 
meere  accident  conveyed  them  to  my  hands.  But,  having 
seriously  perused  them,  loath  I  was  that  any  who  are  religiously 
affected,  should  be  deprived  of  so  great  a  comfort,  as  the  due 

of  Greek  originall  by  lo.  Healey,  1610.  He  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke 
St.  Aiegustzite,  Of  the  Citie  of  God.  .  .  .  Englished  by  I.  //.,  16 10,  and  a  second 
edition  of  Healey's  Epictetus,  i6i5. 

1  SouihweW^  Eourefoiild  Meditation  of  1606  is  a  book  of  excessive  rarity,  only 
one  complete  printed  copy  having  been  met  with  in  our  time.  A  fragment  of  the 
only  other  printed  copy  known  is  now  in  the  British  MuseTjm.  The  work  was 
reprinted  in  1895,  chiefly  from  an  early  copy  in  manuscript,  by  Mr.  Charles 
Edmonds,  the  accomplished  bibliographer,  who  in  a  letter  to  the  Athenieum  on 
November  i,  1873,  suggested  for  the  first  time  the  identity  of  '  W.  H.,'  the  dedicator 
of  Southwell's  poem,  with  Thorpe's  '  Mr.  W.  H.' 


THOMAS  THORPE   AND   'MR.   W.    H.'  4OI 

consideration  thereof  may  bring  unto  them/  '\V.  H/  chose  as 
patron  of  his  venture  one  Mathew  Saunders.  Esq.,  and  to  the 
dedicatory  epistle  prefixed  a  conventional  salutation  wishing 
Saunders  long  life  and  prosperity.  The  greeting  was  printed  in 
large  and  bold  type  thus  : 

To    the     Right    Worfhipfull    and 

Vertuous  Ge?itlema?i^  Mathew 

Saunders,  Efquire 

W.  H.  wifheth,  with  long  life,  a  profperous 

achieuement  of  his  good  defires. 

There  follows  in  small  type,  regularly  printed  across  the  page, 
a  dedicatory  letter  —  the  frequent  sequel  of  the  dedicatory  salu- 
tation—  in  which  the  writer,  'W.  H.,'  commends  the  religious 
temper  of  '  these  meditations '  and  deprecates  the  coldness  and 
sterility  of  his  own  'conceits.'  The  dedicator  signs  himself  at 
the  bottom  of  the  page  •  Your  Worships  unfained  atfectionate, 
W.  H."i 

The  two  books  —  Southwell's  '  Foure-fould  Meditations  '  of 
1606,  and  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  of  1609  —  have  more  in 
common  than  the  appearance  on  the  preliminary  pages  of  the 
initials  •  W.  H.'  in  a  prominent  place,  and  of  the  common  form 
of  dedicatory  salutation.  Both  volumes,  it  was  announced  on 
the  title-pages,  came  from  the  same  press  —  the  press  of  George 
Eld.  Eld  for  many  years  co-operated  with  Thorpe  in  business. 
In  1605  he  printed  for  Thorpe  Ben  Jonson's  '  Sejanus.' and  in 
each  of  the  years  1607,  1608,  1609.  and  161Q  at  least  one  of  his 
ventures    was    publicly    declared    to    be    a    specimen'  of    Eld's 

'A  manuscript  volume  at  Oscott  College  contains  a  contemporary  copy  of 
those  poems  by  Southwell  which  '  unfained  affectionate  W.  H.'  first  gave  to  the 
printing  press.  The  owner  of  the  Oscott  volume,  Peter  Mowle  or  Moulde  (as  he 
indifferently  spells  his  name),  entered  on  the  first  page  of  the  manuscript  in  his  own 
handwriting  an  '  epistel  dedicatorie  '  which  he  confined  to  the  conventional  greeting 
of  happiness  here  and  hereafter.  The  words  ran:  'To  the  right  worshipful!  Mr. 
Thomas  Knevett  Esquire,  Peter  Mowle  wisheth  the  perpetuytie  of  true  felysitie,  the 
health  of  bodie  and  soule  with  continwance  of  worshipp  in  this  worlde,  And  after 
Death  the  participation  of  Heavenlie  happiness  dewringe  all  worldes  for  ever.' 


402  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

typography.  Many  of  Thorpe's  books  came  forth  without  any 
mention  of  the  printer ;  but  Eld's  name  figures  more  frequently 
upon  them  than  that  of  any  other  printer.  Between  1605 
and  1609  it  is  likely  that  Eld  printed  all  Thorpe's  *  copy '  as  matter 
of  course  and  that  he  was  in  constant  relations  with  him. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  the  '  W.  H.'  of  the  Southwell 
volume  was  Mr.  William  Hall,  who,  when  he  procured  that 
'  W.  H.'  manuscript  for  publication,  was  an  humble  auxiliary 
?J^  ,,?^  •  in  the  publishing  army.  Hall  flits  rapidly  across  the 
Hall.  stage  of  literary  history.     He  served  an  apprentice- 

ship to  the  printer  and  stationer  John  Allde  from  1577  to  1584, 
and  was  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  the  Stationers'  Company  in 
the  latter  year.  For  the  long  period  of  twenty-two  years  after 
his  release  from  his  indentures  he  was  connected  with  the  trade 
in  a  dependent  capacity,  doubtless  as  assistant  to  a  master- 
stationer.  When  in  1606  the  manuscript  of  Southwell's  poems 
was  conveyed  to  his  hands  and  he  adopted  the  recognised  role 
of  procurer  of  their  publication,  he  had  not  set  up  in  business 
for  himself.  It  was  only  later  in  the  same  year  (1606)  that  he 
obtained  the  license  of  the  Stationers'  Company  to  inaugurate 
a  press  in  his  own  name,  and  two  years  passed  before  he  began 
business.  In  1608  he  obtained  for  publication  a  theological 
manuscript  which  appeared  next  year  with  his  name  on  the 
title-page  for  the  first  time.  This  volume  constituted  the  earliest 
credential  of  his  independence.  It  entitled  him  to  the  prefix 
'  Mr.' in  all  social  relations.  Between  1609  and  1614  he  printed 
some  twenty  volumes,  most  of  them  sermons  and  almost  all 
devotional  in  tone.  The  most  important  of  his  secular  under- 
taking was  Guillim"s  far-famed  '  Display  of  Heraldrie,'  a  folio 
issued  in  1610.  In  1612  Hall  printed  an  account  of  the  con- 
viction and  execution  of  a  noted  pickpocket,  John  Selman,  who  • 
had  been  arrested  while  professionally  engaged  in  the  Royal 
Chapel  at  Whitehall.  On  the  title-page  Hall  gave  his  own  name 
by  his  initials  only.  The  book  was  described  in  bold  type  as 
'printed  by  W.  H.'  and  as  on  sale  at  the  shop  of  Thomas 
Archer  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  Hall  was  a  careful  printer 
with  a  healthy  dread  of  misprints,  but  his  business  dwindled 
after  161 3,  and,  soon  disposing  of  it  to  one  John  Beale,  he  dis- 
appeared into  private  life. 


THOMAS  THORPE   AND   'MR.   W.    H.'  403 

'W.  H."  are  no  uncommon  initials,  and  there  is  more  interest 
attaching  to  the  discovery  of  'Mr.  W.  H.'s'  position  in  life  and 
his  function  in  relation  to  the  scheme  of  the  publication  of 
the  'Sonnets'  than  in  establishing  his  full  name.  But  there 
is  every  probability  that  William  Hall,  the  '  W.  H.'  of  the 
Southwell  dedication,  was  one  and  the  same  person  with  the 
♦Mr.  W.  H.'  of  Thorpe's  dedication  of  the  'Sonnets.'  No  other 
inhabitant  of  London  was  habitually  known  to  mask  himself 
under  those  letters.  William  Hall  was  the  only  man  bearing 
those  initials  who  there  is  reason  to  suppose  was  on  familiar 
terms  with  Thorpe. ^  Both  were  engaged  at  much  the  same 
period  in  London  in  the  same  occupation  of  procuring  manu- 
scripts for  publication ;  both  inscribed  their  literary  treasure- 
trove  in  the  common  formula  to  patrons  for  whom  they  claimed 
no  high  rank  or  distinction,  and  both  engaged  the  same  printer 
to  print  their  most  valuable  prize. 

No  condition  of  the  problem  of  the  identity  of  Thorpe's 
friend  'Mr.  W.  H.'  seems  ignored  by  the  adoption  of  the  inter- 
'Theonlie  pretation  that  he  was  the  future  master-printer 
begetter '  William  Hall.  The  objection  that  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  could 
*  only  pro-  '^ot  have  been  Thorpe's  friend  in  trade,  because 
curer.'  while  wishing  him  all  happiness  and  eternity  Thorpe 

dubs  him  '  the  only  begetter  of  these  ensuing  sonnets,'  is  not 
formidable.      Thorpe  rarely  used  words  with  much  exactness.* 

1  A  bookseller  (not  a  printer),  William  Holmes,  who  was  in  business  for  himself 
between  1590  and  1615,  was  the  only  other  member  of  the  Stationers'  Company  bear- 
ing at  the  required  dates  the  initials  of  '  W.  H.'  But  he  was  ordinarily  known  by 
his  full  name,  and  there  is  no  indication  that  he  had  either  professional  or  private 
relations  with  Thorpe. 

-  Most  of  his  dedications  are  penned  in  a  loose  diction  of  pretentious  bombast 
which  it  is  difficult  to  interpret  exactly.  When  dedicating  in  1610  —  the  year  after 
the  issue  of  the  Sofincts  —  Healey's  Epictetus  his  Maniiall  '  to  a  true  fauover  of 
forward  spirits,  Maister  John  Florio,'  Thorpe  writes  of  Epictetus's  work:  'In  all 
languages,  ages,  by  all  persons  high  prized,  imbraced,  yea  inbosomed.  It  filles  not 
the  hand  with  leaues,  but  fills  ye  head  with  lessons:  nor  would  bee  held  in  hand  but 
had  by  harte  to  boote.  He  is  more  senceless  than  a  stocke  that  hath  no  good  sence 
of  this  stoick.'  In  the  same  year,  when  dedicating  Healey's  translation  of  St. 
Augustine's  Ci'tz'e  of  God  to  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Thorpe  clumsily  refers  to 
Pembroke's  patronage  of  Healey's  earlier  efforts  in  translation  thus :  '  He  that 
against  detraction  beyond  expectation,  then  found  your  sweete  patronage  in  a 
matter  of  small  moment  without  distrust  or  disturbance,  in  this  work  of  more  weight, 
as  he  approoued  his  more  abilitie,  so  would  not  but  expect  your  Honours  more 
acceptance.' 


404  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

It  is  obvious  that  lie  did  not  employ  '  begetter'  in  the  ordinary 
sense.  '  Begetter,'  when  literally  interpreted  as  applied  to  a 
literary  work,  means  father,  author,  producer,  and  it  cannot 
be  seriously  urged  that  Thorpe  intended  to  describe  '  Mr.  W.  H.' 
as  the  author  of  the  'Sonnets.'  'Begetter'  has  been  used  in 
the  figurative  sense  of  inspirer,  and  it  is  often  assumed  that  by 
'only  begetter'  Thorpe  meant  'sole  inspirer,'  and  that  by  the 
use  of  those  words  he  intended  to  hint  at  the  close  relations 
subsisting  between  '  W.  H.'  and  Shakespeare  in  the  dramatist's 
early  life  ;  but  that  interpretation  presents  numberless  difficulties. 
It  was  contrary  to  Thorpe's  aims  in  business  to  invest  a  dedica- 
tion with  any  cryptic  significance  and  thus  mystify  his  customers. 
Moreover,  his  career  and  the  circumstances  under  which  he 
became  the  publisher  of  the  sonnets  confute  the  assumption  that 
he  was  in  such  relations  with  Shakespeare  or  with  Shakespeare's 
associates  as  would  give  him  any  knowledge  of  Shakespeare's 
early  career  that  was  not  public  property.  All  that  Thorpe  — 
the  struggling  pirate-publisher,  '  the  well-wishing  adventurer  in 
setting  forth'  wares  mysteriously  come  by  —  knew  or  probably 
cared  to  know  of  Shakespeare  was  that  he  was  the  most  popular 
and  honoured  of  the  literary  producers  of  the  day.  When 
Thorpe  had  the  luck  to  acquire  surreptitiously  an  unprinted 
manuscript  by  '  our  ever-living  poet,'  it  was  not  in  the  great 
man's  circle  of  friends  or  patrons,  to  which  hitherto  he  had  had 
no  access,  that  he  was  likely  to  seek  his  own  patron.  Element- 
ary considerations  of  prudence  impelled  him  to  publish  his 
treasure-trove  with  all  expedition,  and  not  disclose  his  design 
prematurely  to  one  who  might  possibly  take  steps  to  hinder  its 
fulfilment.  But  that  Thorpe  had  no  '  inspirer '  of  the  '  Sonnets ' 
in  his  mind  when  he  addressed  himself  to  'Mr.  W.  H.'  is 
finally  proved  by  the  circumstance  that  the  only  identifiable 
male  'inspirer'  of  the  poems  was  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  to 
whom  the  initials  'W.  H.'  do  not  apply. 

Of  the  figurative  meanings  set  in  Elizabethan  English  on  the 
word  •  begetter,'  that  of  '  inspirer '  is  by  no  means  the  only  one 
or  the  most  common.  'Beget'  was  not  infrequently  employed 
in  the  attenuated  sense  of  '  get,'  '  procure,'  or  '  obtain,'  a  sense 
which  is  easily  deducible  from  the  original  one  6i  '  bring 
into  being.'      Hamlet,  when  addressing  the  players,  bids  them 


THOMAS  THORPE   AND   'MR.   W.   H.'  405 

•in  the  very  whirlwind  of  passion  acquire  and  beget  a  tem- 
perance that  may  give  it  smoothness.'  'I  have  some  cousins 
german  at  Court,' wrote  Dei^lcer  in  1602,  in  his  '  Satiro-Mastix,' 
'  [that]  shall  beget  you  the  reversion  of  the  Master  of  the  King's 
Revels.'  'Mr.  W.  H.,'  whom  Thorpe  described  as  'the  only 
begetter  of  these  ensuing  sonnets,'  was  in  all  probability  the 
acquirer  or  procurer  of  the  manuscript,  who,  figuratively  speak- 
ing, brought  the  book  into  being  either  by  first  placing  the 
manuscript  in  Thorpe's  hands  or  by  pointing  out  the  means 
by  which  a  copy  might  be  acquired.  To  assign  such  signifi- 
cance to  the  word  'begetter'  was  entirely  in  Thorpe's  vein.i 
Thorpe  described  his  role  in  the  piratical  enterprise  of  the 
'  Sonnets '  as  that  of  '  the  well-wishing  adventurer  in  setting 
forth,'  i.e.  the  hopeful  speculator  in  the  scheme.  'Mr.  W.  H.' 
doubtless  played  the  almost  equally  important  part  —  one  as 
well  known  then  as  now  in  commercial  operations  —  of  the 
'vender'  of  the  property  to  be  exploited. 

1  This  is  the  sense  allotted  to  the  word  in  the  great  Variorum  edition  of  1821  by 
Malone's  disciple,  James  Boswell  the  younger,  who,  like  his  master,  was  a  biblio- 
graphical expert  of  the  highest  authority.  The  fact  that  the  eighteenth-century 
commentators  —  men  like  Malone  and  Steevens  —  who  were  thoroughly  well  versed  in 
the  literary  history  of  the  sixteenth  century,  should  have  failed  to  recognise  any  con- 
nection between  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  and  Shakespeare's  personal  history  is  in  itself  a  very 
strong  argument  against  the  interpretation  foisted  on  the  dedication  during  the 
present  century  by  writers  who  have  no  pretensions  to  be  reckoned  the  equals  of 
Malone  and  Steevens  as  literary  archaeologists. 


4o6 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


VI 

'MR.    WILLIAM  HERBERT' 

For  fully  sixty  years  it  has  been  very  generally  assumed 
that  Shakespeare  addressed  the  bulk  of  his  sonnets  to  the 
Origin  of  young  Earl  of  Pembroke.  This  theory  owes  its 
^v!*^  "m"""  origin  to  a  speciously  lucky  guess  which  was  first  dis- 
W.  H.  '  closed  to  the  public  in  1832,  and  won  for  a  time  almost 
stands  for  universal  acceptance.^  Thorpe's  form  of  address  was 
liamHer-  ^^^^  to  justify  the  mistaken  inference  that,  whoever 
bert.'  '  Mr.  W.   H.'  may  have  been,  he  and  no  other  was 

the  hero  of  the  alleged  story  of  the  poems ;  and  the  corner- 
stone of  the  Pembroke  theory  was  the  assumption  that  the 
letters  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  in  the  dedication  did  duty  for  the  words 
'  Mr.  William  Herbert,'  by  which  name  the  (third)  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke was  represented  as  having  been  known  in  y(juth.     The 

1  James  Boaden,  a  journalist  and  the  biograplier  of  Kemble  and  Mrs.  Siddons, 
was  the  first  to  snggest  the  Pembroke  theory  in  a  letter  to  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine  in  1832.  A  few  months  later  Mr.  James  Hey  wood  Bright  wrote  to  the 
magazine  claiming  to  have  reached  the  same  conclusion  as  early  as  i8ig,  although 
he  had  not  published  it.  Boaden  re-stated  the  Pembroke  theory  in  a  volume  on 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets  which  he  published  in  :837  C  Armitage  Brown  adopted 
it  in  1838  in  his  Shakespeare's  Autobiographical  Poems.  The  Rev.  Joseph  Hunter, 
who  accepted  the  theory  without  qualification,  significantly  pointed  out  in  his  N'e%u 
Illustrations  0/  Shakespeare  in  1845  (ii,  346)  that  it  had  not  occurred  to  any  of  the 
writers  in  the  great  Variorum  editions  of  Shakespeare,  nor  to  critics  so  acute  in 
matters  of  literary  history  as  Malone  or  George  Chalmers.  The  theory  is  treated 
as  proved  fact  in  many  recent  literary  manuals.  Of  its  supporters  at  the  date  of 
writing  the  most  ardent  is  Mr.  Thomas  Tyler,  who  published  an  edition  of  the 
sonnets  in  1890,  and  there  further  advanced  a  claim  to  identify  the  'dark  lady'  of 
the  sonnets  with  Mary  Fitton,  a  lady  of  the  Court  and  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's 
mistress.  Mr.  Tyler  has  endeavoured  to  substantiate  both  the  Pembroke  and  the 
Fitton  theories,  by  merely  repeating  his  original  arguments,  in  a  pamphlet  which 
appeared  in  April  of  this  year  under  the  title  of  The  Herbert-Fitton  Theory  :  a 
Reply  [i.e.  to  criticisms  of  the  theories  by  Lady  Newdegate  and  by  myself]  The 
Pembroke  theory,  whose  adherents  have  dwindled  of  late,  will  henceforth  be 
relegated,  1  trust,  to  the  category  of  popular  delusions. 


'MR.   WILLIAM   HERBERT'  407 

originators  of  the  theory  claimed  to  discover  in  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  the  only  young  man  of  rank  and  wealth  to  whom  the 
initials  "VV.  H.'  applied  at  the  needful  dates.  In  thus  inter- 
preting the  initials,  the  Pembroke  theorists  made  a  blunder 
that  proves  on  examination  to  be  fatal  to  their  whole  con- 
tention. 

The  nobleman  under  consideration  succeeded  to  the  earl- 
dom of  Pembroke  on  his  father's  death  on  January  19,  1601 
The  Earl  of  (^ ■  ^•)'  '^^'hen  he  was  twenty  years  and  nine  months 
Pembroke  old,  and  from  that  date  it  is  unquestioned  that  he  was 
as  Lord"'^  always  known  by  his  lawful  title.  But  it  has  been 
Herbert  in  overlooked  that  the  designation  '  Mr.  William  Her- 
youth.  j^gj-t,'  for  which  the  initials  •  Mr.  W.  H.'  have  been  long 

held  to  stand,  could  never  in  the  mind  of  Thomas  Thorpe  or 
any  other  contemporary  have  denominated  the  Earl  at  any 
moment  of  his  career.  When  he  came  into  the  world  on 
April  9,  1580,  his  father  had  been  (the  second)  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke for  ten  years,  and  he,  as  the  eldest  son,  was  from  the 
hour  of  his  birth  known  in  all  relations  of  life  —  even  in  the 
baptismal  entry  in  the  parish  register  —  by  the  title  of  Lord 
Herbert,  and  by  no  other.  During  the  lifetime  of  his  father 
and  his  own  minority  several  references  were  made  to  him  in 
the  extant  correspondence  of  friends  of  varying  degrees  of 
intimacy.  He  is  called  by  them,  without  exception,  '  my  Lord 
Herbert,'  *the  Lord  Herbert,'  or  'Lord  Herbert.' ^  It  is  true 
that  as  the  eldest  son  of  an  earl  he  held  the  title  by  courtesy, 
but  for  all  practical  purposes  it  was  as  well  recognised  in  com- 
mon speech  as  if  he  had  been  a  peer  in  his  own  right.  No  one 
nowadays  w-ould  address  in  current  parlance,  or  even  entertain 
the  conception  of.  Viscount  Cranborne,  the  heir  of  the  present 
Prime  Minister,  as  'Mr.  J.  C  or  'Mr.  James  Cecil.'  It  is  just 
as  legitimate  to  assert  that  it  would  have  occurred  to  an  Eliza- 
bethan —  least  of  all  to  a  personal  acquaintance  or  to  a  publisher 

'  Cf.  Sydney  Papers,  ed.  Collins,  i.  353.  '  My  Lord  (of  Pembroke)  himself  with 
my  Lord  Harbert  (are)  come  up  to  see  the  Queen '  (  Rowland  Whyte  to  Sir  Robert 
.Sydney,  October  8,1591),  and  again  p.  361  (November  16,  1595);  and  p.  373 
(December  5,  1595).  John  Chamberlain  wrote  to  Sir  Dudley  Carleton  on  August  i, 
ijgg,  ^  young  Lord  Harbert,  Sir  Henrie  Carie,  and  Sir  William  Woodhouse,  are  all 
in  election  at  Court,  who  shall  set  the  best  legge  foremost.'  Chamberlain's  Letters 
(Camden  Soc),  p.  57. 


408  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

who  stood  toward  his  patron  in  the  relation  of  a  personal 
dependent  —  to  describe  'young  Lord  Herbert,'  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  as  '  Mr.  William  Herbert.'  A  lawyer,  who  in  the  way  of 
business  might  have  to  mention  the  young  lord's  name  in  a 
legal  document,  would  have  entered  it  as  'William  Herbert, 
commonly  called  Lord  Herbert.'  The  appellation  "Mr.'  was 
not  used  loosely  then  as  now,  but  indicated  a  precise  social 
grade.  Thorpe's  employment  of  the  prefix  '  Mr.'  without  quali- 
fication is  in  itself  fatal  to  the  pretension  that  any  lord,  whether 
by  right  or  courtesy,  was  intended.^ 

Proof  is  at  hand  to  estabhsh  that  Thorpe  was  under  no 
misapprehension  as  to  the  proper  appellation  of  the  Earl  of 
Thorpe's  Pembroke,  and  was  incapable  of  venturing  on  the 
modeofad-  meaningless  misnomer  of 'Mr.  W.  H.'  Insignificant 
the  Earl  of  publisher  though  he  was,  and  sceptical  as  he  was  of 
Pembroke,  the  merits  of  noble  patrons,  he  was  not  proof  against 
the  temptation,  when  an  opportunity  was  directly  offered  him.  of 
adorning  the  prefatory  pages  of  a  publication  with  the  name 
of  a  nobleman  who  enjoyed  the  high  official  station,  the  literary 
culture,  and  social  influence  of  the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke. 
In  1610  —  a  year  after  he  published  the  '  Sonnets  '  —  there  came 
into  his  hands  the  manuscripts  by  John  Healey,  that  humble 
literary  aspirant  who  had  a  few  months  before  emigrated  to 
Virginia,  and  had,  it  would  seem,  died  there.  Healey,  before 
leaving  England,  had  secured  through  the  good  offices  of  John 
Florio  (a  man  of  influence  in  both  fashionable  and  literary  circles), 
the  patronage  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  for  a  translation  of 
Bishop  Hall's  fanciful  satire,  •  Mundus  alter  et  idem.'     Calling 

1  Thomas  Sackville,  the  author  of  the  Induction  to  T!ie  Mirror  for  Magistrates, 
and  other  poetical  pieces,  and  part  author  of  Gorboduc,  was  born  plain  '  Thomas 
Sackville,'  and  was  ordinarily  addressed  in  youth  as  '  Mr.  Sackville.'  He  wrote  all 
his  literary  work  while  he  bore  that  and  no  other  designation.  He  subsequently 
abandoned  literature  for  politics,  and  was  knighted  and  created  Lord  Buckhurst. 
Ver^'  late  in  life,  in  1604,  —  at  the  age  of  sixty-eight,  —  he  became  Earl  of  Dorset.  A 
few  of  his  youthful  effusions,  which  bore  his  early  signature,  '  M.  [/.f.  Mr.  ]  Sackville,' 
were  reprinted  with  that  signature  unaltered  in  an  encyclopaedic  anthology, 
England's  Parnassus,  which  was  published,  wholly  independently  of  him,  in  1600, 
after  he  had  become  Baron  Buckhurst.  About  the  same  date  he  was  similarly 
designated  Thomas  or  Mr.  Sackville  in  a  reprint,  unauthorised  by  him,  of  his 
Induction  to  The  Mirror  /or  Magistrates,  which  was  in  the  original  text  ascribed, 
with  perfect  correctness,  to  Thomas  or  Mr.  Sackville.  There  is  clearly  no  sort  of 
parallel  (as  has  been  urged)  between  such  an  explicable,  and  not  unwarrantable, 
metachronism  and  the  misnaming  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  .A.s  might 
be  anticipated,  persistent  research  affords  no  parallel  for  the  latter  irregularity. 


«MR.    WILLIAM    HERBERT'  409 

his  book  '  The  Discovetie  of  a  New  World,'  Healey  had  prefixed 
to  it.  in  i6og,  an  epistle  inscribed  in  garish  terms  of  flattery  to 
the  *  Truest  mirrour  of  truest  honor,  William  Earl  of  Pembroke.'  ^ 
When  Thorpe  subsequently  made  up  his  mind  to  publish,  on 
his  own  account,  other  translations  by  the  same  hand,  he  found 
it  desirable  to  seek  the  same  patron.  Accordingly,  in  1610.  he 
prefixed  in  his  own  name,  to  an  edition  of  Healey's  translation 
of  St.  Augustine's  '  Citie  of  God,'  a  dedicatory  address  '  to  the 
honorablest  patron  of  the  Muses  and  good  mindes.  Lord  William, 
Earle  of  Pembroke.  Knight  of  the  Honourable  Order  (of  the 
Garter),  &c.'  In  involved  sentences  Thorpe  tells  the  •  right 
gracious  and  gracefule  Lord '  how  the  author  left  the  work  at 
death  to  be  a  '  testimonie  of  gratitude,  observance,  and  heart's 
honor  to  your  honour.'  '  Wherefore,'  he  explains,  '  his  legacie, 
laide  at  your  Honour's  feete,  is  rather  here  delivered  to  your 
Honour's  humbly  thrise-kissed  hands  by  his  poore  delegate. 
Your  Lordship's  true  devoted,  Th.  Th.' 

Again,  in  1616,  when  Thorpe  procured  the  issue  of  a  second 
edition  of  another  of  Healey's  translations.  '  Epictetus  Manuall. 
Cebes  Table.  Theoprastus  Characters,'  he  supplied  more  con- 
spicuous evidence  of  the  servility  with  which  he  deemed  it 
incumbent  on  him  to  approach  a  potent  patron.  As  this  address 
by  Thorpe  to  Pembroke  is  difficult  of  access.  I  give  it  in 
extenso : 
'To  the  Right  Honourable,  William  Earle  of  Pembroke,  Lord 

Chamberlaine   to    His   Majestie,  one   of  his  most  honorable 

Privie  Counsell,  and  Knight  of  the  most  noble  order  of  the 

Garter,  &c. 

'  Right  Honorable.  —  It  may  worthily  seeme  strange  unto 
your  Lordship,  out  of  what  frenzy  one  of  my  meanenesse  hath 
presumed  to  commit  this  Sacriledge.  in  the  straightnes.se  of 
your  Lordship's  leisure,  to  present  a  peece.  for  matter  and 
model  so  unworthy,  and  in  this  scribbling  age,  wherein  great 
persons  are  so  pestered  dayly  with  Dedications.  All  I  can 
alledge  in  extenuation  of  so  many  incongruities,  is  the  bequest 
of  a  deceased  Man ;  who  (in  his  lifetime)  having  offered  some 

'  An  examination  of  a  copy  of  the  book  in  the  Bodleian  —  none  is  in  the  British 
Museum  —  shows  that  the  dedication  is  signed  J.  H.,  and  not,  as  Mr.  Fleay  infers, 
by  Thorpe.     Thorpe  had  no  concern  in  this  volume. 


4IO  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

translations  of  his  unto  your  Lordsliip,  ever  wislit  if  these 
ensiling  wei'e  published  they  might  onely  bee  addressed  unto 
your  Lordship,  as  the  last  Testimony  of  his  dutiful!  affection  (to 
use  his  own  termes)  The  trice  and  reall  upholder  of  Lear  tied 
endeavors.  This,  therefore,  beeing  left  unto  mee,  as  a  Legacie 
unto  your  Lordship  (pardon  my  presumption,  great  Lord,  from 
so  meane  a  man  to  so  great  a  person)  I  could  not  without  some 
impiety  present  it  to  any  other ;  such  a  sad  priviledge  have  the 
bequests  of  the  dead,  and  so  obligatory  they  are,  more  than  the 
requests  of  the  living.  In  the  hope  of  this  honourable  accept- 
ance I  will  ever  rest, 

'Your  lordship's  humble  devoted, 

'T.  Th.' 

With  such  obeisances  did  publishers  then  habitually  creep 
into  the  presence  of  the  nobility.  In  fact,  the  law  which 
rigorously  maintained  the  privileges  of  peers  left  them  no 
option.  The  alleged  erroneous  form  of  address  in  the  dedica- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  'Sonnets'  —  'Mr.  W.  H.'  for  Lord  Herbert 
or  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  —  would  have  amounted  to  the  offence 
of  defamation.  And  for  that  misdemeanour  the  Star  Chamber, 
always  acting  in  protecting  the  dignity  of  peers,  would  have 
promptly  called  Thorpe  to  account. ^ 

Of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  of  his  brother  the  Earl  of 
Montgomery,  it  was  stated  a  few  years  later,  '  from  just  obser- 
vation,' on  very  pertinent  authority,  that  '  no  men  came  near 
their  lordships  [in  their  capacity  of  literary  patrons],  but  with  a 
kind  of  religious  address.'  These  words  figure  in  the  prefatory 
epistle  which  two  actor-friends  of  Shakespeare  addressed  to  the 
two  Earls  in  the  posthumously  issued  First  Folio  of  the 
dramatist's  works.  Thorpe's  'kind  of  religious  address'  on 
seeking  Lord  Pembroke's  patronage  for  Healey's  books  was 
somewhat  more  unctuous  than  was  customary  or  needful.  But 
of  erring  conspicuously  in  an  opposite  direction  he  may,  without 
misgiving,  be  pronounced  innocent. 

^  On  January  27,  1607-8,  one  Sir  Henry  Colte  was  indicted  for  slander  in  the  Star 
Chamber  for  addressing  a  peer,  Lord  Morley,  as  '  goodman  Morley.'  A  technical 
defect  —  the  omission  of  the  precise  date  of  the  commission  of  the  alleged  offence  -  in 
the  bill  of  indictment  led  to  a  dismissal  of  the  cause.  See  Les  Refiortcs  del  Cases 
iti  Caviera  Steilnta,  1593  to  1609,  edited  from  the  manuscript  of  Henry  Hawardeby 
W.  p.  Baildon,  F.S.A.  (privately  printed  for  Alfred  Morrison),  p.  348. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   THE   EARL   OF   PEMBROKE      41I 


VII 

SHAKESPEARE   AND    THE  EARL    OF 
PEMBROKE 

With  the  disposal  of  the  allegation  that  'Mr.  W.  H.'  repre- 
sented the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  youthful  name,  the  whole  theory 
of  that  Earl's  identity  with  Shakespeare's  friend  collapses. 
Outside  Thorpe's  dedicatory  w^ords,  only  two  scraps  of  evidence 
with  any  title  to  consideration  have  been  adduced  to  show  that 
Shakespeare  was  at  any  time  or  in  any  way  associated  with 
Pembroke. 

In  the  late  autumn  of  1603  James  I  and  his  Court  were 
installed  at  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  house  at  Wilton  for  a  period 
Shake-  °^  '•^^^  months,  owing  to  the  prevalence  of  the  plague 

speare  with    in  London.     By  order  of  the   officers   of  the    royal 

the  ac  ing  household,  the  King's  company  of  plavers.  of  which 
company  at  '  =>  1       /         j^     -        ' 

Wilton  in  Shakespeare  was  a  member,  gave  a  performance 
1603.  before  the   King  at  Wilton  House  on  December  2. 

The  actors  travelled  from  Mortlake  for  the  purpose,  and  were 
paid  in  the  ordinary  manner  by  the  treasurer  of  the  royal  house- 
hold out  of  the  public  funds.  There  is  no  positive  evidence  that 
Shakespeare  attended  at  Wilton  with  the  company,  but  assum- 
ing, as  is  probable,  that  he  did,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  can  be 
held  no  more  responsible  for  his  presence  than  for  his  repeated 
presence  under  the  same  conditions  at  Whitehall.  The  visit  of 
the  King's  players  to  Wilton  in  1603  has  no  bearing  on  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke's  alleged  relations  with  Shakespeare.^ 

1  See  pp.  231-2,  supra.  A  tradition  has  lately  sprung  up  in  W'ilton  to  the  effect 
that  a  letter  once  existed  there  in  which  the  Countess  of  Pembroke  bade  her  son  the 
Earl  while  he  was  in  attendance  on  James  I  at  Salisbury  to  bring  the  King  to  W^ilton 
to  witness  a  performance  oi  As  You  Like  It.  The  Countess  is  said  to  have  added, 
'  We  have  the  man  Shakespeare  with  us.'  No  tangible  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
the  letter  is  forthcoming  and  its  tenor  stamps  it,  if  it  exists,  as  an  ignorant  in- 
vention. The  circumstances  under  which  both  King  and  players  visited  Wilton  in 
1603  are   completely   misrepresented.      The    Court    temporarily  occupied    Wilton 


412  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  second  instance  of  Llie  association  in  the  seventeenth 
century  uf  Shakespeare's  name  with  Pembroke's  tells  wholly 
The  dedi-  against  the  conjectured  intimacy.  Seven  years 
'^h'' v"  °^  ^^^^^  ^'^*^  dramatist's  death,  two  of  his  friends  and 
Folio.  fellow-actors     prepared    the      collective     edition  of 

his  plays  known  as  the  First  Folio,  and  they  dedicated  the 
volume,  in  the  conventional  language  of  eulogy,  '  To  the  most 
noble  and  incomparable  paire  of  brethren,  William  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  &c..  Lord  Chamberlaine  to  the  King's  most  excel- 
lent Majesty,  and  Philip,  Earl  of  Montgomery,  &c.,  Gentleman 
of  His  Majesties  Bedchamber.  Both  Knights  of  the  most 
Noble  Order  of  the  Garter  and  our  singular  good  Lords.' 

The  choice  of  such  patrons,  whom,  as  the  dedication  inti- 
mated, 'no  one  came  near  but  with  a  kind  of  religious  address,' 
proves  no  private  sort  of  friendship  between  them  and  the  dead 
author.  To  the  two  Earls  in  partnership  nearly  every  work  of 
any  literary  pretension  was  dedicated  at  the  period.  Moreover, 
the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke  was  Lord  Chamberlain  in  1623,  and 
exercised  supreme  authority  in  theatrical  aflfairs.  That  his 
patronage  should  be  sought  for  a  collective  edition  of  the  works 
of  the  acknowledged  master  of  the  contemporary  stage  was  a 
matter  of  course.  It  is  only  surprising  that  the  editors  should 
have  yielded  to  the  passing  vogue  of  soliciting  the  patronage  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  brother  in  conjunction  with  the  Lord 
Chamberlain. 

The  sole  sentence  in  the  editor's  dedication  that  can  be  held 

House,  and  Shakespeare  and  his  comrades  were  ordered  by  the  officers  of  the  royal 
household  to  give  a  performance  there  in  the  same  way  as  they  would  have  been 
summoned  to  play  before  the  King  had  he  been  at  Whitehall.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  add  that  the  Countess  of  Pembroke's  mode  of  referring  to  literary  men  is  well 
known;  she  treated  them  on  terms  of  equality,  and  could  not  in  any  aberration  of 
mind  or  temper  have  referred  to  Shakespeare  as  '  the  man  Shakespeare.'  Similarly, 
the  present  Earl  of  Pembroke  purchased  of  a  London  picture-dealer  last  year  what 
purported  to  be  a  portrait  of  the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  on  the  back  was  pasted 
a  paper,  that  was  represented  to  date  from  the  seventeenth  century,  containing  some 
lines  from  Shakespeare's  Sonnet  Ixxxi.  (9-14),  subscribed  with  the  words  'Shake- 
speare unto  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  1603.'  The  ink  and  handwriting  are  quite  modern, 
and  hardly  make  pretence  to  be  of  old  date  in  the  eyes  of  any  one  accustomed  to 
study  manuscripts.  On  May  5  of  this  year  some  persons  interested  in  the  matter,  in- 
cluding myself,  examined  the  portrait  and  the  inscription,  on  the  kind  invitation  of 
the  present  Earl,  and  the  inscription  was  unanimously  declared  by  palaeographical 
experts  to  be  a  clumsy  forgery  unworthy  of  serious  notice. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  EARL  OF  PEMBROKE  413 

to  bear  on  the  question  of  Shakespeare's  alleged  intimacy  with 
Pembroke  is  their  remark  that  both  Earls  had  ' prosequuted,' 
i.e.  favoured,  the  plays  'and  their  authour  living.'  But  this 
assertion  only  justifies  the  inference  that  the  brothers  shared 
the  enthusiastic  esteem  which  James  I  and  all  the  noblemen 
of  his  Court  extended  to  Shakespeare  and  his  plays  in  the 
dramatist's  lifetime.  Apart  from  his  work  as  a  dramatist, 
Shakespeare,  in  his  capacity  of  one  of  '  the  King's  servants '  or 
company  of  players,  was  personally  known  to  all  the  othcers  of 
the  royal  household  who  collectively  controlled  theatrical 
representations  at  Court.  Throughout  James  I's  reign  his  plays 
were  repeatedly  performed  in  the  royal  presence,  and  when  the 
dedicators  of  the  First  Folio,  at  the  conclusion  of  their  address 
to  Lords  Pembroke  and  Montgomery,  describe  the  dramatist's 
works  as  '  these  remaines  of  your  Servant  Shakespeare,'  they 
make  it  quite  plain  that  it  was  in  the  capacity  of  '  King's 
ser\'ant '  or  player  that  they  knew  him  to  have  been  the  object 
of  their  noble  patrons'  favour. 

The  sonnets  offer  no  internal  indication  that  the  Earl  of 
Pembroke  and  Shakespeare  ever  saw  one  another.  Nothing  at 
all  is  deducible  from  the  vague  parallelisms  that  have  been 
adduced  between  the  Earl's  character  and  position  in  life  and 
those  with  which  the  poet  credited  the  youth  of  the  sonnets. 
It  may  be  granted  that  both  had  a  mother  (Sonnet  iii.),  that 
both  enjoyed  wealth  and  rank,  that  both  were  regarded  by 
admirers  as  cultivated,  that  both  were  self-indulgent  in  their 
relations  with  women,  and  that  both  in  early  manhood  were 
No  sugces-  indisposed  to  marry,  owing  to  habits  of  gallantry, 
s'onnets  of  ^^  ^'^^  alleged  point  of  resemblance  there  is  no 
the  youth's  evidence.  The  loveliness  assigned  to  Shakespeare's 
■tl"*?'^  youth  was  not,  as  far  as  we  can  learn,  definitely  set 
broke.  to    Pembroke's    account.      Francis    Davison,    when 

dedicating  his  -Poetical  Rhapsody'  to  the  Earl  in  1602  in  a 
very  eulogistic  sonnet,  makes  a  cautiously  qualified  reference 
to  the  attractiveness  of  his  person  in  the  lines  : 

[His]  outward  shape,  though  it  most  lovely  be, 
Doth  in  fair  robes  a  fairer  soul  attire. 

The  only  portraits  of  him  that  survive  represent  him  in  middle 


414  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

age/  and  seem  to  confute  the  suggestion  that  he  was 
reckoned  handsome  at  any  time  of  Hfe  ;  at  most  they  confirm 
Anthony  Wood's  description  of  him  as  in  person  'rather 
majestic  than  elegant.'  But  the  point  is  not  one  of  moment, 
and  the  argument  neither  gains  nor  loses,  if  we  allow  that 
Pembroke  may,  at  any  rate  in  the  siglit  of  a  poetical  panegyrist, 
have  at  one  period  reflected,  like  Shakespeare's  youth,  '  the 
lovely  April  of  his  mother's  prime.' 

But  when  we  have  reckoned  up  the  traits  that  can,  on 
any  showing,  be  admitted  to  be  common  to  both  Pembroke  and 
Shakespeare's  alleged  friend,  they  all  proved  to  be  equally 
indistinctive  All  could  be  matched  without  difficulty  in  a  score 
of  youthful  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  Elizabeth's  Court. 
Direct  external  evidence  of  Shakespeare's  friendly  intercourse 
with  one  or  other  of  Elizabeth's  young  courtiers  must  be  produced 
before  the  sonnets'  general  references  to  the  youth's  beauty 
and  grace  can  render  the  remotest  assistance  in  establishing  his 
identity. 

Although  it  may  be  reckoned  superfluous  to  adduce  more 

arguments,  negative   or  positive,  against   the   theory  that   the 

Earl  of  Pembroke  was  a  youthful  friend  of  Sliakespeare,  it  is 

worth  noting  that  John  Aubrey,  the  Wiltshire  antiquary,  and  the 

biographer  of  most  Englishmen  of  distinction  of  the  sixteenth 

and  seventeenth  centuries,  was  zealously  researching,  from  1650 

onwards,  into  the  careers  alike  of  Shakespeare  and  of  various 

members  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke's  family  —  one  of  the  chief 

Aubrey's       in  Wiltshire.      Aubrey  rescued  from  oblivion  many 

ignorance      anecdotes  —  scandalous  and  otherwise  —  about  both 

relation         the  third  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  about  Shakespeare. 

between        Of  the  former  he  wrote  in  his  '  Natural  History  of  Wilt- 
Shake- 
speare  and    shire '  (ed.   Britton,   1847),  recalling  the  Earl's  rela- 

Pembroke.     tions  with  Massinger  and  many  other  men  of  letters. 

Of  Shakespeare,  Aubrey  narrated  much  lively  gossip  in  his  'Lives 

of  Eminent  Persons.'     But  neither  in  his  account  of  Pembroke 

nor  in  his  account  of  Shakespeare  does  he  give  any  hint  that 

they  were  at  any  time  or  in  any  manner  acquainted  or  associated 

with  one  another.     Had  close  relations  existed  between  them, 

1  Cf.  the  engravings  of  Simon  Pass,  Stent,  and  Vandervoerst,  after  the  portrait 
by  Mytens. 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE   EARL  OF   PEMBROKE     415 

it  is  impossible  that  all  trace  of  it  would  have  faded  from  the 
traditions  that  were  current  in  Aubrey's  time  and  were  embodied 
in  his  writings.^ 

'  It  is  unnecessary,  after  what  has  been  said  above  (p.  123),  to  consider  seriously 
the  suggestion  that  the  '  dark  lady '  of  the  sonnets  was  Mary  Fitton,  maid  of  honour 
to  Queen  Elizabeth.  This  frolicsome  lady,  who  was  at  one  time  Pembroke's 
mistress  and  bore  him  a  child,  has  been  only  introduced  into  a  discussion  of  the 
sonnets  on  the  assumption  that  her  lover,  Pembroke,  was  the  youth  to  whom  the 
sonnets  were  addressed.  Lady  Newdegate's  recently  published  Goss{/>  from  a 
Muniment  Room,  which  furnishes  for  the  first  time  a  connected  biography  of 
Pembroke's  mistress,  adequately  disposes  of  any  lingering  hope  that  Shakespeare 
may  have  commemorated  her  in  his  black-complexioned  heroine.  Lady  Newdegate 
states  that  two  well-preserved  portraits  of  Mary  Fitton  remain  at  Arbury,  and  that 
they  reveal  a  lady  of  fair  complexion  with  brown  hair  and  grey  eyes.  Family  history 
places  the  authenticity  of  the  portraits  beyond  doubt,  and  the  endeavour  lately  made 
by  Mr.  Tyler,  the  chief  champion  of  the  hopeless  Fitton  theory,  to  dispute  their 
authenticity  is  satisfactorily  met  by  Mr.  C.  O.  Bridgeman  in  an  appendix  to  the 
second  edition  of  Lady  Newdegate's  book.  We  also  learn  from  Lady  Newdegate's 
volume  that  Miss  Fitton,  during  her  girlhood,  was  pestered  by  the  attentions  of  a 
middle-aged  admirer,  a  married  friend  of  the  family,  Sir  William  Knollys.  It  has 
been  lamely  suggested  by  some  of  the  supporters  of  the  Pembroke  theory  that  Sir 
William  Knollys  was  one  of  the  persons  named  Will  who  are  alleged  to  be  noticed 
as  competitors  with  Shakespeare  and  the  supposititious  '  Will  Herbert '  for  '  the 
dark  lady's'  favours  in  the  sonnets  (cxxxv.,  cxxxvi.,  and  perhaps  clxiii.).  But  that 
is  a  shot  wholly  out  of  range.  The  wording  of  those  sonnets,  when  it  is  thoroughly 
tested,  proves  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  the  poet  was  the  only  lover  named  Will 
who  is  represented  as  courting  the  disdainful  lady  of  the  sonnets,  and  that  no  refer- 
ence whatever  is  made  there  to  any  other  person  of  that  Christian  name. 


4l6  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


VIII 

THE  '  WILL'   SONNETS 

No  one  has  had  the  hardihood  to  assert  that  the  text  of  the 
sonnets  gives  internally  any  indication  that  the  youth's  name 
took  the  hapless  form  of  'William  Herbert';  but  many  com- 
mentators argue  that  in  three  or  four  sonnets  Shakespeare 
admits  in  so  many  words  that  the  youth  bore  his  own  Christian 
name  of  Will,  and  even  that  the  disdainful  lady  had  among  her 
admirers  other  gentlemen  entitled  in  familiar  intercourse  to 
similar  designation.  These  are  fantastic  assumptions  which 
rest  on  a  misconception  of  Shakespeare's  phraseology  and  of 
the  character  of  the  conceits  of  the  sonnets,  and  are  solely 
attributable  to  the  fanatical  anxiety  of  the  supporters  of  the 
Pembroke  theory  to  extort,  at  all  hazards,  some  sort  of  evi- 
dence in  their  favour  from  Shakespeare's  text.^ 

In  two  sonnets  (cxxxv.-vi.)  —  the  most  artificial  and  'con- 
ceited '  in  the  collection  —  the  poet  plays  somewhat  enig- 
matically on  his  Christian  name  of  '  Will,'  and  a  similar 
pun  has  been  doubtfully  detected  in  Sonnets  cxxxiv.  and 
cxlvii.  The  groundwork  of  the  pleasantry  is  the  identity 
in  form  of  the  proper  name  with  the  common  noun  '  will.' 
Elizabeth-  This  word  connoted  in  Elizabethan  English  a 
?"  "^^j^"^"  generous  variety  of  conceptions,  of  most  of  which 
'  will.'  it  has  long  since  been  deprived.     Then,  as  now,  it 

was  emj^loyed  in  the  general  psychological  sense  of  volition ; 
but  it  was  more  often  specifically  applied  to  two  limited 
manifestations  of  the  volition.  It  was  the  commonest  of  syno- 
nyms alike  for  '  self-will '  or  '  stubbornness  '  —  in  which  sense  it 

■Professor  Dowden  {Sonnets,  p.  xxxv.)  writes:  '  It  appears  from  the  punning 
sonnets  (cxxxv.  and  cxliii.)  that  the  Christian  name  of  Shakespeare's  friend  was  the 
same  as  his  own,  Will,^  and  thence  is  deduced  the  argument  that  the  friend  could 
only  be  identical  with  one  who,  like  William,  E:iil  of  Pembroke,  bore  that  Christian 
name. 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  417 

still  survives  in  'wilful' — and  for  Must'  or  'sensual  passion.' 
It  also  did  occasional  duty  for  its  own  diminutive  '  wish,'  for 
'caprice,'  for  'good-will,'  and  for  'free  consent '  (as  nowadays  in 
'  willing  '  or  '  willingly  ') . 

Shakespeare  constantly  used  '  will '  in  all  these  significa- 
tions, lago  recognised  its  general  psychological  value  when 
Shake-  he  said,  •  Our  bodies  are  our  gardens,  to  the  which 

usesof^the  our  wills  are  gardeners.'  The  conduct  of  the  -will' 
word.  is    discussed    after    the    manner    of    philosophy   in 

'Troilus  and  Cressida '  (11.  ii.  51-68).  In  another  of  lago's 
sentences,  '  Love  is  merely  a  lust  of  the  blood  and  a  permission 
of  the  will,'  light  is  shed  on  the  process  by  which  the  word  came 
to  be  specifically  applied  to  sensual  desire.  The  last  is  a 
favourite  sense  with  Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries. 
Angelo  and  Isabella,  in  '  iVIeasure  for  Measure,'  are  at  one  in 
attributing  their  conflict  to  the  formers  •  will.'  The  self-indul- 
gent Bertram,  in  '  All's  Well.'  '  fleshes  his  "  will  "  in  the  spoil  of 
a  gentlewoman's  honour.'  In  *Lear'  (iv.  vi.  279)  Regan's 
heartless  plot  to  seduce  her  brother-in-law  is  assigned  to  'the 
undistinguished  space'  —  the  boundless  range  —  'of  woman's 
will.'  Similarly,  Sir  Philip  Sidney  apostrophised  lust  as  '  thou 
web  of  will.'  Thomas  Lodge,  in  'Phillis'  (Sonnet  xi.)  warns 
lovers  of  the  ruin  that  menaces  all  who  '  guide  their  course  by 
will.'  Nicholas  Breton's  fantastic  romance  of  1599,  entitled 
'The  Will  of  Wit,  Wit's  Will  or  Will's  Wit,  Chuse  you 
Whether,'  is  especially  rich  in  like  illustrations.  Breton  brings 
into  marked  prominence  the  antithesis  which  was  familiar  in 
his  day  between  '  will '  in  its  sensual  meaning,  and  '  wit,'  the 
Elizabethan  synonym  for  reason  or  cognition.  'A  song  between 
Wit  and  Will '  opens  thus  : 

Wii :  What  art  thou,  Will  ?     H7//;  A  babe  of  nature's  brood. 
Wii  :  WHio  was  thy  sire  ?      Will :  Sweet  Lust,  as  lovers  say. 
Wit:  Thy  mother  who  ?      Will :  Wild  lusty  wanton  blood. 
Wit :  When  wast  thou  born  ?      Will :  In  merry  month  of  May. 
Wit:  And  where  brought  up?      Will :  In  school  of  little  skill. 
Wit:  What  learn'dst  thou  there?      Will:  Love  is  my  lesson  still. 

Of  the  use  of  the  word  in  the  sense  of  stubbornness  or  self-will 
Roger   Ascham  gives  a  good  instance   in  his   '  Schoolmaster,' 


41 8  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

(1570),  where  he  recommends  that  such  a  vice  in  children  as 
'  will,'  which  he  places  in  the  category  of  lying,  sloth,  and 
disobedience,  should  be  •  with  sharp  chastisement  daily  cut 
away.'  ^  '  A  woman  will  have  her  will '  was,  among  Elizabethan 
wags,  an  exceptionally  popular  proverbial  phrase,  the  point  of 
which  revolved  about  the  equivocal  meaning  of  the  last  word. 
The  phrase  supplied  the  title  of  '  a  pleasant  comedy,'  by  Will- 
iam Haughton,  which  —  from  1597  onwards  —  held  the  stage 
for  the  unusually  prolonged  period  of  forty  years.  '  Women, 
because  they  cannot  have  their  wills  when  they  dye,  they  will 
have  their  wills  while  they  live,'  was  a  current  witticism  which 
the  barrister  Manningham  deemed  worthy  of  record  in  his  '  Diary ' 
in  i6o2.'-^ 

It  was  not  only  in  the  sonnets  that  Shakespeare  —  almost 
invariably  with  a  glance  at  its  sensual  significance  —  rang  the 
changes  on  this  many-faced  verbal  token.  In  his  earliest  play, 
'Love's  Labour's  Lost'  (11.  i.  97-101),  after  the  princess  has 
tauntingly  assured  the  King  of  Navarre  that  he  will  break  his 
vow  to  avoid  women's  society,  the  king  replies,  '  Not 
speare's  ^o^  the  world,  fair  madam,  hy  my  will  '  (/.^.  wilHngly). 
puns  on  The  princess  retorts  '  Why  will  {i.e.  sensual  desire) 
^^""^  ■  shall  break  it  {i.e.  the  vow),  will  and  nothing  else.' 
In  '  Much  Ado,'  when  Benedick,  anxious  to  marry  Beatrice,  is 
asked  by  the  lady's  father  '  What's  your  will  ? '  he  playfully 
lingers  on  the  word  in  his  answer.  As  for  his  '  will,'  his  '  will ' 
is  that  the  father's  '  good-will  may  stand  with  his '  and  Beatrice's 
'  will '  —  in  other  words  that  the  father  may  consent  to  their 
union.  Slender  and  Anne  Page  vary  the  tame  sport  when  the 
former  misinterprets  the  young  lady's  'What  is  your  will?'  into 
an  inquiry  into  the  testamentary  disposition  of  his  property. 
To  what  depth  of  vapidity  Shakespeare  and  contemporary 
punsters  could  sink  is  nowhere  better  illustrated  than  in  the 
favour  they  bestowed  on  efforts  to  extract  amusement  from  the 
parities  and  disparities  of  form  and  meaning  subsisting  between 
the  words  '  will '  and  '  wish,'  the  latter  being  in  vernacular  use 

1  Ed.  Mayor,  p.  35. 

2  Manningham's  Diary,  p.  92;  cf.  Barnabe  Barnes's  Odes  Pastoral,  sestine  2: 

But  women  will  have  their  own  wills, 
Alas,  why  then  should  I  complain.' 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  419 

as  a  diminutive  of  the  former.  Twice  in  the  'Two  Gentlemen 
of  Verona'  (i.  iii.  63  and  iv.  ii.  96)  Shakespeare  ahnost  strives 
to  invest  with  the  tlavour  of  epigram  the  unpretending  announce- 
ment tliat  one  interlocutor's  •  wish '  is  in  harmony  with  another 
interlocutor's  'will.' 

It  is  in  this  vein  of  pleasantry  —  'will'  and  'wish'  are 
identically  contrasted  in  Sonnet  cxxxv.  —  that  Shakespeare,  to 
the  confusion  of  modern  readers,  makes  play  with  the  word 
'  will '  in  tlie  sonnets,  and  especially  in  the  two  sonnets 
(cxxxv .-vi.)  which  alone  speciously  justify  the  delusion  that  the 
lady  is  courted  by  two,  or  more  than  two,  lovers  of  the  name  of 
Will. 

One  of  the  chief  arguments  advanced  in  favour  of  this 
interpretation  is  that  the  word  'will'  in  these  sonnets  is 
frequently  italicised  in  the  original  edition.  But  this  has 
little  or  no  bearing  on  the  argument.  The  corrector  of  the 
Arbitrary  press  recognised  that  Sonnets  cxxxv.  and  cxxxvi. 
and  irregu-  largely  turned  upon  a  simple  pun  between  the 
italics  by  writer's  name  of  '  Will '  and  the  lady's  '  will.'  That 
Elizabethan  fact,  and  no  other,  he  indicated  very  roughly  by 
bean  print-  occasionally  italicising  the  crucial  word.  Typography 
ers.  at  the  time  followed  no  firmly  fixed  rules,  and,  although 

'  will '  figures  in  a  more  or  less  punning  sense  nineteen  times  in 
these  sonnets,  the  printer  only  bestow^ed  on  the  word  the 
distinction  of  italics  in  ten  instances,  and  those  were  selected 
arbitrarily.  The  italics  indicate  the  obvious  equivoque,  and 
indicate  it  imperfectly.  That  is  the  utmost  that  can  be  laid  to 
their  credit.  They  give  no  hint  of  the  far  more  complicated 
punning  that  is  alleged  by  those  who  believe  that  '  Will '  is  used 
now  as  the  name  of  the  writer,  and  now  as  that  of  one  or  more 
'of  the  rival  suitors.  In  each  of  the  two  remaining  sonnets  that 
have  been  forced  into  the  service  of  the  theory,  Nos.  cxxxiv.  and 
cxliii., '  will '  occurs  once  only  ;  it  alone  is  italicised  in  the  second 
sonnet  in  the  original  edition,  and  there  in  my  opinion  arbitrarily 
and  without  just  cause. ^ 

'  I'esides  punning  words,  printers  of  poetry  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  made  an  effort  to  italicise  proper  names,  unfamiliar  words,  and  words  deemed 
worthy  of  s])ecial  emphasis.  But  they  did  not  strictly  adhere  to  these  rules,  and, 
while  they  often  failed  to  italicise  the  words  that  deserved  italicisation.  they  freely 


420  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

The  general  intention  of  the  complex  conceits  of  Sonnets 
cxxxv.  and  cxxxvi.  becomes  obvious  when  we  bear  in  mind 
Ihe  con-  that  in  them  Shakespeare  exploits  to  the  uttermost 
ceits  of  Son-  ^i.,g  verbal  coincidences  which  are  inherent  in  the 
vi.  inter-  '  Elizabethan  word  '  will.'  '  Will '  is  the  Christian 
preted.  name  of  the  enslaved  writer ;  '  will '  is  the  sentiment 

with  which  the  lady  inspires  her  worshippers ;  and  '  will ' 
designates  stubbornness  as  well  as  sensual  desire.  These  two 
characteristics,  according  to  the  poet's  reiterated  testimony,  are 
the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  lady's  disposition.  He  often 
dwells  elsewhere  on  her  'proud  heart'  or  'foul  pride,' and  her 
sensuality  or  'foul  faults.'  These  are  her  'wills,'  and  they 
make  up  her  being.  In  crediting  the  lady  with  such  a 
constitution  Shakespeare  was  not  recording  any  definite  ob- 
servation or  experience  of  his  own,  but  he  followed,  as  was 
his  custom,  the  conventional  descriptions  of  the  disdainful 
mistress  common  to  all  contemporary  collections  of  sonnets. 
Barnabe  asks  the  lady  celebrated  in  his  sonnets,  from  whose 
'proud  disdainfulness'  he  suffered. 

Why  dost  thou  my  delights  delay, 

And  with  thy  cross  unkindness  kills  (sic) 

Mine  heart,  bound  martyr  to  thy  wills  ? 

Barnes  answers  his  question  in  the  next  lines  : 

But  women  will  have  their  own  wills. 
Since  what  she  lists  her  heart  fulfils.i 

Similar  passages  abound  in  Elizabethan  sonnets,  but 
certain  verbal  similarities  give  good  ground  for  regarding 
Shakespeare's  '  will '  sonnets  as  deliberate  adaptations  —  doubt- 
less with  satiric  purpose  — of  Barnes's  stereotyped  reflections 
on  women's  obduracy.  The  form  and  the  constant  repetition  of 
the  word  '  will '  in  these  two  sonnets  of  Shakespeare  also  seem 
to  imitate  derisively  the  same  rival's  Sonnets  Ixxii.  and  Ixxiii. 
in  which  Barnes  puts  the  words  '  grace '  and  '  graces '  through 

italicised  others  that  did  not  merit  it.  Capital  initial  letters  were  employed  with  like 
irregularity.  Mr.  Wyndham  in  his  careful  note  on  the  typography  of  the  quarto  of 
1609  (pp.  259  seq.)  suggests  that  Elizabethan  printers  were  not  erratic  in  their 
uses  of  italics  or  capital  letters,  but  an  examination  of  a  very  large  number  of 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  books  has  brought  me  to  an  exactly  opposite  conclusion. 
1  Barnes's  PartheitopJiilKn  Arber's  Garner,  v.  440. 


THE   'WILL'   SONNETS  421 

much  the  same  evokitions  as  Shakespeare  puts  the  words  'will' 
and  •  wills  '  in  the  Sonnets  cxxxv.  and  cxxxvi.^ 
Shakespeare's  '  Sonnet '  cxxxv.  runs  : 

Whoever  hath  her  wish,  thou  hast  thy  Will, 
And  will  to  boot,  and  will  in  over-plus ; 
More  than  enough  am  I  that  vex  thee  still, 
To  thy  sweet  will  making  addition  thus. 
Wilt  thou,  whose  will  is  large  and  spacious,^ 
Not  once  vouchsafe  to  hide  my  will  in  thine? 
Shall  will  in  others  seem  right  gracious. 
And  in  my  will  no  fair  acceptance  shine? 
The  sea,  all  wafer,  yet  receives  rain  still, 
And  in  abundance  addeth  to  his  store; 
So  thou,  being  rich  in  will,  add  to  thy  will, 
One  will  of  mine,  to  make  thy  large  will  more. 

Let  no  unkind  no  fair  beseechers  kill; 

Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  —  Will. 

In  the  opening  words,  'Whoever  hath  her  wish,'  the  poet 
prepares   the   reader   for    the   punning   encounter   by   a   slight 

variation  on  the  current  catch-phrase  '  A  woman  will 
cxxxv^  have  her  will.'     At  the  next  moment  we  are  in  the 

thick  of  the  wordy  fray.  The  lady  has  not  only  her 
lover  named  Will,  but  untold  stores  of  '  will '  —  in  the  sense  alike 
of  stubbornness  and  of  lust  —  to  which  it  seems  supererogatory 
to  make  addition. ^  To  the  lady's  'over-plus'  of  'will'  is 
punningly  attributed  her  defiance  of  the  '  will '  of  her  suitor 
Will  to  enjoy  her  favours.     At  the   same  time  *  will '  in  others 

^  After  quibbling  in  Sonnet  Ixxii  on  the  resemblance  between  the  g'races  of 
his  cruel  mistress's  face  and  the  Graces  of  classical  mythology,  Barnes  develops  the 
topic  in  the  next  sonnet  after  this  manner  (the  italics  are  my  own) : 

Why  did  rich  Nature  graces  grant  to  thee, 

Since  thou  art  such  a  niggard  of  thy  grace! 

O  how  Q.3Xi  graces  in  thy  body  be? 

Where  neither  they  nor  pity  find  a  place!   .   .  . 

Grant  me  some  grace!     For  thou  with  grace  art  weaUhy 

And  kindly  may'st  afford  sovne  gracious  thing. 

2  Cf.  Lear,  iv.  vi.  279, '  O  undistinguish'd  space  of  woman's  will ' ;  i.e.  '  O  boimd- 
less  range  of  woman's  lust.' 

••Professor  Dowden  says  'will  to  boot'  is  a  reference  to  the  Christian  name  of 
Shakespeare's  friend,  '  WiUiam  [?  Mr.  W.  H.]  '  {Sc»ineis,p.  2-^6) :  but  in  my  view  the 
poet,  in  the  second  line  of  the  sonnet,  only  seeks  emphasis  by    repetition  in  accord- 


422  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

proves  to  her  '  right  gracious,"  ^  although  in  him  it  is  unaccept- 
able. All  this,  the  poet  hazily  argues,  should  be  otherwise  ;  for 
as  the  sea,  although  rich  in  water,  does  not  refuse  the  falling 
rain,  but  freely  adds  it  to  its  abundant  store,  so  she,  '  rich  in 
will,'  should  accept  her  lover  Will's  '  will '  and  '  make  her  large 
will  more.'     The  poet  sums  up  his  ambition  in  the  final  couplet : 

Let  no  unkind  no  fair  beseechers  kill ; 
Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  —  Will. 

This  is  as  much  as  to  say,  '  Let  not  my  mistress  in  her  unkind- 
ness  kill  any  of  her  fair-spoken  adorers.  Rather  let  her  think 
all  who  beseech  her  favours  incorporate  in  one  alone  of  her 
lovers  —  and  that  one  the  writer  whose  name  of  "Will"  is  a 
synonym  for  the  passions  that  dominate  her.'  The  thought  is 
wiredrawn  to  inanity,  but  the  words  make  it  perfectly  clear  that 
the  poet  was  the  only  one  of  the  lady's  lovers  —  to  the  definite 
exclusion  of  all  others  —  whose  name  justified  the  quibbing 
pretence  of  identity  with  the  '  will '  which  controls  her  being. 

The  same  equivocating  conceit  of  the  poet  Will's  title  to 
identity  with  the  lady's  '  will '  in  all  senses  is  pursued  in  Sonnet 
cxxxvi.     The  sonnet  opens  : 

If  thy  soul  check  thee  that  I  come  so  near, 
Swear  to  thy  blind  soul  that  I  was  thy  will, 2 
And  will  thy  soul  knows  is  admitted  there. 

Here  Shakespeare  adapts  to  his  punning  purpose  the  familiar 
Sonnet  philosophic  commonplace  respecting  the  soul's  domi- 

cxxxvi.  nation  by 'will'  or  volition,  which  was  more  clearly 

ance  with  no  uncommon  practice  of  his.  The  line  '  And  will  to  boot,  and  will  in 
over-plus,'  is  paralleled  in  its  general  form  and  intention  in  such  lines  of  other 
sonnets  as 

Kind  is  my  love  to-day,  to-morrow  kind  (cv.  5) . 

Beyond  all  date,  even  to  eternity  (cxxii.  4). 

Who  art  as  black  as  hell,  as  dark  as  night  (cxlvii.  14). 

In  all  these  instances  the  second  half  of  the  line  merely  repeats  the  first  half  with  a 
slight  intensification. 

'  Cf.  Barnes's  Sonnet  Ixxiii. : 

All  her  looks  grncioiis,  yet  no  grace  do  bring 
To  me,  poor  wretch!     Yet  be  the  Graces  there. 

2  Shakespeare  refers  to  the  blindness,  the  '  sightless  view  '  of  the  soul,  in  Sonnet 
xxvii.,  and  apostrophises  the  soul  as  the  '  centre  of  his  sinful  earth '  in  Sonnet  cxivi. 


THE  'WILL'   SONNETS  423 

expressed  by  his  contemporary,  Sir  John  Davies,  in  the  philo- 
sophic poem,  "Nosce  Teipsum': 

Will  holds  the  royal  sceptre  in  the  soul, 
And  on  the  passions  of  the  heart  doth  reign. 

Whether  Shakespeare's  lines  be  considered  with  their  context 
or  without  it,  the  tenor  of  their  thought  and  language  positively 
refutes  the  commentators'  notion  that  the  '  will '  admitted  to  the 
lady's  soul  is  a  rival  lover  named  Will.  The  succeeding  lines 
run : 

Thus  far  for  love,  my  love-suit,  sweet,  fulfil.l 
Will  will  fulfil  the  treasure  of  thy  love ; 
Ay,  fill  it  full  with  wills,  and  my  will  one. 
'   In  things  of  great  receipt  with  ease  we  prove 
Among  a  number  one  is  reckon'd  none  : 
Then  in  the  number  let  me  pass  untold. 
Though  in  thy  stores'  account,  I  one  must  be; 
For  nothing  hold  me,  so  it  please  thee  hold 
That  nothing  me,  a  something  sweet  to  thee. 

Here  the  poet  Will  continues  to  claim,  in  punning  right  of 
his  Christian  name,  a  place,  however  small  and  inconspicuous, 
among  the  '  wills,'  the  varied  forms  of  will  (/.<?.  lust,  stubborn- 
ness, and  willingness  to  accept  others'  attentions),  which  are  the 
constituent  elements  of  the  lady's  being.  The  plural  'wills 'is 
twice  used  in  identical  sense  by  Barnabe  Barnes  in  the  lines 
already  quoted : 

Mine  heart,  bound  martyr  to  thy  -wills. 
But  women  will  have  their  own  luills. 

Impulsively  Shakespeare  brings  his  fantastic  pretension  to 
a  somewhat  more  practical  issue  in  the  concluding  apostrophe : 

Make  but  my  name  thy  love,  and  love  that  still. 
And  then  thou  lovest  me  —  for  my  name  is  Will.2 

'  The  use  of  the  word  '  fulfil '  in  this  and  the  next  line  should  be  compared  with 
Barnes's  introduction  of  the  word  in  a  like  context  in  the  passage  given  above  : 
Since  what  she  lists  her  heart y>/^/j. 

=  Mr.  Tyler  paraphrases  these  lines  thus:  '  You  love  your  other  admirer  named 
"  Will."  Love  the  name  alone,  and  then  you  love  me,  for  my  name  is  Will,'  p.  297. 
Professor  Dowden,  hardly  more  illuminating,  says  the  lines  mean:  '  Love  only  my 
name  (something  less  than  loving  myself),  and  then  thou  lovest  me,  for  my  name  is 
Will,  and  I  myself  am  all  will,  i.e.  all  desire.' 


424  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

That  is  equivalent  to  saying  '  Make  "  will  ■' '  (/.<?.  that  which  is 
yourself)  'your  love,  and  then  you  love  me,  because  Will  is  my 
name.'  The  couplet  proves  even  more  convincingly  than  the 
one  which  clinches  the  preceding  sonnet  that  none  of  the  rivals 
whom  the  poet  sought  to  displace  in  the  lady's  affections  could 
by  any  chance  have  been,  like  himself,  called  Will.  The  writer 
could  not  appeal  to  a  mistress  to  concentrate  her  love  on  his 
name  of  Will,  because  it  was  the  emphatic  sign  of  identity 
between  her  being  and  him,  if  that  name  were  common  to  him 
and  one  or  more  rivals,  and  lacked  e.xclusive  reference  to  him- 
self. 

Loosely  as  Shakespeare's  sonnets  were  constructed,  the 
couplet  at  the  conclusion  of  each  poem  invariably  summarises 
the  general  intention  of  the  preceding  twelve  lines.  The  con- 
cluding couplets  of  these  two  sonnets  cxxxv.-vi.,  in  which 
Shakespeare  has  been  alleged  to  acknowledge  a  rival  of  his 
own  name  in  his  suit  for  a  lady's  favour,  are  consequently  the 
touchstone  by  which  the  theory  of  '  more  Wills  than  one '  must 
be  tested.  As  we  have  just  seen,  the  situation  is  summarily 
embodied  in  the  first  couplet  thus : 

Let  no  unkind  no  fair  beseechers  kill ; 
Think  all  but  one,  and  me  in  that  one  —  Will. 

It  is  re-embodied  in  the  second  couplet  thus : 

Make  but  my  name  thy  love,  and  love  that  still, 
And  then  thou  lovest  me  —  for  my  name  is  Will. 

The  whole  significance  of  both  couplets  resides  in  the 
twice-repeated  fact  that  one,  and  only  one,  of  the  lady's  lovers 
is  named  Will,  and  that  that  one  is  the  writer.  To  assume  that 
the  poet  had  a  rival  of  his  own  name  is  to  denude  both  couplets 
of  all  point.  'Will,'  we  have  learned  from  the  earlier  lines  of 
both  sonnets,  is  the  lady's  ruling  passion.  Punning  mock-logic 
brings  the  poet  in  either  sonnet  to  the  ultimate  conclusion  that 
one  of  her  lovers  may,  above  all  others,  reasonably  claim  her 
love  on  the  ground  that  his  name  of  Will  is  the  name  of  her 
ruling  passion.  Thus  his  pretension  to  her  affections  rest,  he 
punningly  assures  her,  on  a  strictly  logical  basis. 


THE  'WILL'   SONNETS  425 

Unreasonable  as  any  other  interpretation  of  these  sonnets 

(cxxxv.-vi.)    seems   to    be,    I    believe   it   far    more 

Sonnet  fatuous  to  seek  in  the  single  and  isolated  use  of  the 

word   'will'   in   each    of    the   sonnets   cxxxiv.    and 

cxliii.  any  confirmation  of  the  theory  of  a  rival  suitor  named 

Will. 

Sonnet  cxxxiv.  runs : 

So  now  I  have  confess'd  that  he  is  thine, 
And  I  myself  am  mortgaged  to  thy  will.l 
Myself  I'll  forfeit,  so  that  other  mine 
Thou  wilt  restore,  to  be  my  comfort  still. 
But  thou  wilt  not,  nor  he  will  not  be  free, 
For  thou  art  covetous  and  he  is  kind. 
He  learn'd  but  surety-like  to  write  for  me. 
Under  that  bond  that  him  as  fast  doth  bind. 
The  statute  of  thy  beauty  thou  wilt  take. 
Thou  usurer,  that  putt'st  forth  all  to  use. 
And  sue  a  friend  came  debtor  for  my  sake; 
So  him  I  lose  through  my  unkind  abuse. 

Him  have  I  lost;  thou  hast  both  him  and  me; 

He  pays  the  whole,  and  yet  am  I  not  free. 

Here  the  poet  describes  himself  as  '  mortgaged  to  the  lady's 
will '  {i.e.  to  her  personality,  in  which  '  will,'  in  the  double  sense 
of  stubbornness  and  sensual  passion,  is  the  strongest  element). 
He  deplores  that  the  lady  has  captivated  not  merely  himself, 
but  also  his  friend,  wlio  made  vicarious  advances  to  her. 

Sonnet  cxliii.  runs  : 

Lo,  as  a  careful  housewife  runs  to  catch 
One  of  her  feathered  creatures  broke  away. 
Sets  down  her  babe,  and  makes  all  swift  despatch 
In  pursuit  of  the  thing  she  would  have  stay ; 
Whilst  her  neglected  child  holds  her  in  chase, 
Cries  to  catch  her  whose  busy  care  is  bent 
To  follow  that  which  flies  before  her  face, 
Not  prizing  her  poor  infant's  discontent: 


1  The  word  '  Will '  is  not  here  italicised  in  the  original  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
sonnets,  and  there  is  no  ground  whatever  for  detecting  in  it  any  sort  of  pun.  The 
line  resembles  Barnes's  line  quoted  above: 

Mine  heart  bound  martyr  to  thy  wills. 


426  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

So  runn'st  thou  after  that  which  flies  from  thee, 

Whilst  I,  thy  babe,  chase  thee  afar  behind; 

But  if  thou  catch  thy  hope  turn  back  to  me. 

And  play  the  mother's  part,  kiss  me,  be  kind: 
So  will  I  pray  that  thou  niayst  have  thy  will.l 
If  thou  turn  back  and  my  loud  crying  still. 

In  this  sonnet  —  which    presents   a  very   clear-cut   picture, 

although  its  moral  is  somewhat  equivocal  —  the  poet  represents 

,,  r  the  lady  as  a  country  housewife  and  himself  as  her 

Meanmg  of  -' 

Sonnet "  babe ;  while  an  acquaintance,  who  attracts  the 
cxliii.  la^fiy   j-jyt   is    not   attracted   by   her,  is  figured  as   a 

'feathered  creature '  in  the  housewife's  poultry-yard.  The  fowl 
takes  to  flight ;  the  housewife  sets  down  her  infant  and  pursues 
'  the  thing.'  The  poet,  believing  apparently  that  he  has  little 
to  fear  from  the  harmless  creature,  lightly  makes  play  with  the 
current  catch-phrase  ('a  woman  will  have  her  will'),  and 
amiably  wishes  his  mistress  success  in  her  chase,  on  condition 
that,  having  recaptured  the  truant  bird,  she  turn  back  and  treat 
him,  her  babe,  with  kindness.  In  praying  that  the  lady  'may 
have  her  will'  the  poet  is  clearly  appropriating  the  current  catch- 
phrase,  and  no  pun  on  a  man's  name  of  '  Will '  can  be  fairly 
wrested  from  the  context. 

'  Because  '  will  '  by  what  is  almost  certainly  a  typographical  accident  is  here 
printed  IVili  in  the  first  edition  of  the  sonnets,  Professor  Dowden  is  inclined  to  accept 
a  reference  to  the  supposititious  friend  Will,  and  to  believe  the  poet  to  pray  that  the 
lady  may  have  her  Will,  i.e.  the  friend  '  Will  [  ?  W.  H.].'  This  interpretation  seems 
to  introduce  a  needless  complication. 


VOGUE  OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN   SONNET  427 


IX 

THE    VOGUE   OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN 
SONNET,  1591-1597 

The  sonnetteering  vogue,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,^ 
reached  its  full  height  between  1591  and  1597,  and  when  at  its 
briskest  in  1594  it  drew  Shakespeare  into  its  current.  An 
enumeration  of  volumes  containing  sonnet-sequences  or  de- 
tached sonnets  that  were  in  circulation  during  the  period  best 
illustrates  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  sonnetteering  rage  of 
those  years,  and,  with  that  end  in  view,  I  give  here  a  biblio- 
graphical account,  with  a  few  critical  notes  of  the  chief  efforts 
of  Shakespeare's  rival  sonnetteers.^ 

The  earliest  collections  of  sonnets  to  be  published  in 
England  were  those  by  the  Earl  of  Surrey  and  Sir  Thomas 
Wvatt's  Wyatt,  which  first  appeared  in  the  publisher  TottePs 
and  Sur-  poetical  miscellany  called  '  Songes  and  Sonnetes '  in 
reysSon-  1557.  This  volume  included  sixteen  sonnets  by  Sur- 
lished  in  rey  and  twenty  by  Wyatt.  Many  of  them  w^re  trans- 
^557-  lated  directly  from  Petrarch,  and  most  of  them  treated 

conventionally  of  the  torments  of  an  unrequited  love.  Surrey 
included,   however,   three  sonnets   on   the  death  of  his   friend 

1  See  p   83,  supra. 

^  The  word  '  sonnet '  was  often  irregularly  used  for  '  song  '  or  '  poem.'  '  A  proper 
sonnet '  in  Clement  Robinson's  poetical  anthology,  A  Haiidefiill of  Pleasattt  Delites, 
1584,  is  a  lyric  in  ten  four-line  alternatively  rhymed  stanzas.  Neither  Barnabe 
Googe's  Eglogs,  Epyttaphes,  and  Sonnettes,  1563,  nor  George  Turbervile's  Epi- 
taphes.  Epigrams,  Songs  and  Sonets,  1567,  contains  a  single  fourteen-lined  poem. 
The  French  .vord  'quatorzain'  was  the  term  almost  as  frequently  applied  as  ■  sonnet* 
to  the  fourteen-line  stanza  in  regular  sonnet  form,  which  alone  falls  within  my  sur- 
vey. Watson  is  congratulated  on  '  scaling  the  skies  in  lofty  quatorzains  '  in  verses 
before  his  Passionate  Centurie,  1582;  cf.  '  crazed  quatorzains '  in  Thoniah  X.ish's 
preface  to  his  edition  of  Sidney's  Astrophcl  and  Stella,  1591 ;  and  A  tnours  in  Qua- 
torzains on  the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  of  Drayton's  Sonnets,  1594. 


428  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

Wvatt,  and  a  fourth  on  tlie  death  of  one  Clere,  a  faithful 
follower.  TotteFs  volume  was  seven  times  reprinted  by  1587. 
But  no  sustained  endeavour  was  made  to  emulate  the  example 
of  Surrey  and  Wyatt  till  Thomas  Watson  about  1580  circulated 
in  manuscript  his  '  Booke  of  Passionate  Sonnetes,'  which  he 
wrote  for  his  patron,  the  Earl  of  Oxford.  The  volume  was 
printed  in  1582,  and  under  the  title  of  ''EKATOMIIAOIA 
Watson's  or  Passionate  Centurie  of  Loue.  Divided  into  two 
'  Centurie  parts:  whereof  the  first  expresseth  the  Authours 
1582.  '  sufferance  on  Loue :  the  latter  his  long  farewell  to 
Loue  and  all  his  tyrannie.  Composed  by  Thomas  Watson,  and 
published  at  the  request  of  certaine  Gentlemen  his  very  frendes.' 
Watson's  work,  which  he  called  'a  toy,'  is  a  curious  literary 
mosaic.  He  supplied  to  each  poem  a  prose  commentary,  in 
which  he  not  only  admitted  that  every  conceit  was  borrowed, 
but  quoted  chapter  and  verse  for  its  origin  from  classical 
literature  or  from  the  work  of  French  or  Italian  sonnetteers.^ 
Two  regular  quatorzains  are  prefixed,  but  to  each  of  the 
*  passions '  there  is  appended  a  four-line  stanza  which  gives 
each  poem  eighteen  instead  of  the  regular  fourteen  lines 
Watson's  efforts  were  so  well  received,  however,  that  he  applie(" 
himself  to  the  composition  of  a  second  series  of  sonnets  in  strict 
metre.  This  collection,  entitled  '  The  Teares  of  Fancie,'  only 
circulated  in  manuscript  in  his  lifetime."^ 

Meanwhile  a  greater  poet.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who  died  in 
1586,  had  written  and  circulated  among  his  friends  a  more 
ambitious  collection  of  a  hundred  and  eight  sonnets. 
'  Astrophel  Most  of  Sidney's  sonnets  were  addressed  by  him  under 
and  Stella,'  the  name  of  Astrophel  to  a  beautiful  woman  poetically 
^^^^'  designated    Stella.     Sidney  had  in   real  life  courted 

assiduously  the  favour  of  a  married  lady,  Penelope.  Lady  Rich, 
and  a  few  of  the  sonnets  are  commonly  held  to  reflect  the  heat 
of  passion  which  the  genuine  intrigue  developed.  But  Petrarch, 
Ronsard,  and  Desportes  inspired  the  majority  of  Sidney's 
efforts,  and  his  addresses  to  abstractions  like  sleep,  the  moon,  his 
muse,  grief,  or  lust  are  almost  verbatim  translations  from  the 
French.     Sidney's  sonnets  were  first  published  surreptitiously, 

'  See  p.  103,  supra. 

2  All  Watson's  sonnets  are  reprinted  by  Mr.  .Arber  in  Watson's  Poems,  1895. 


VOGUE   OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN   SONNET  429 

under  the  title  of  '  Astrophel  and  Stella,''  by  a  publishing  advent- 
urer named  Thomas  Newman,  and  in  his  first  issue  Newman 
added  an  appendix  of  '  sundry  other  rare  sonnets  by  divers 
noblemen  and  gentlemen.'  Twenty-eight  sonnets  by  Daniel 
were  printed  in  the  appendix  anonymously  and  without  the 
author's  knowledge.  Two  other  editions  of  Sidney's  'Astrophel 
and  Stella '  without  the  appendix  were  issued  in  the  same  year. 
Eight  other  of  Sidney's  sonnets,  which  stili  circulated  only  in 
manuscript,  were  first  printed  anonymously  in  1594  with  the 
sonnets  of  Henry  Constable,  and  these  were  appended  with 
some  additions  to  the  authentic  edition  of  Sidney's  '  Arcadia' 
and  other  works  that  appeared  in  1598.  Sidney  enjoyed  in  the 
decade  that  followed  his  death  the  reputation  of  a  demi-god, 
and  the  wide  dissemination  in  print  of  his  numerous  sonnets  in 
1 591  spurred  nearly  every  living  poet  in  England  to  emulate 
his  achievement.^ 

In  order  to  facilitate  a  comparison  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets 
with  those  of  his  contemporaries  it  will  be  best  to  classify  the 
sonnetteering  efforts  that  immediately  succeeded  Sidney's  under 
the  three  headings  of  (i)  sonnets  of  more  or  less  feigned  love, 
addressed  to  a  more  or  less  fictitious  mistress ;  (2)  sonnets  of 
adulation,  addressed  to  patrons  ;  and  (3)  sonnets  invoking  meta- 
physical abstractions  or  treating  impersonally  of  religion  or 
philosophy.^ 

In  February  1592  Samuel  Daniel  published  a  collection  of 
fifty-five  sonnets,  with  a  dedicatory  sonnet  addressed  to  his 
I. Collected  patroness,  Sidney's  sister,  the  Countess  of  Pem- 
sonnets  of  broke.  As  in  many  French  volumes,  the  collection 
jglj'g  concluded  with  an  'ode.'^     At  every  point    Daniel 

1  In  a  preface  to  Newman's  first  edition  oi  Astrophel  and  Stella  the  editor,  Thomas 
Nash,  in  a  burst  of  exultation  over  what  he  deemed  the  surpassing  merits  of  Sidney's 
sonnets,  exclaimed:  '  Put  out  your  rushlights,  you  poets  and  rhymers!  and  bequeath 
your  crazed  quatorzains  to  the  chandlers!  for  lo,  here  he  cometh  that  hath  broken 
your  legs.'  But  the  effect  of  Sidney's  work  was  just  the  opposite  to  that  which 
Nash  anticipated.  It  gave  the  sonnet  in  England  a  vogue  that  it  never  enjoyed 
before  or  since. 

2  With  collections  of  sonnets  of  the  first  kind  are  occasionally  interspersed 
sonnets  of  the  second  or  third  class,  but  I  classify  each  sonnet-collection  according 
to  its  predominant  characteristic. 

3  Daniel  reprinted  all  but  nine  of  the  sonnets  that  had  been  unwarrantably 
appended  to  Sidney's  Astrophel.     These  nine  he  permanently  dropped. 


430  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

betrayed  his  indebtedness  to  French  sonnetteers,  even  when 
apologising  for  his  inferiority  to  Petrarch  (No.  xxxviii.) .  His  title 
Daniel's  '^^  borrowed  from  the  collection  of  Maurice  Seve,  whose 
'  Delia,"  assemblage  of  dixains  called  *  Delie,  objet  de  plus  haute 
1592.  vertu'  (Lyon,  1544),  was  the  pattern  of  all  sonnet- 

sequences  on  love,  and  was  a  constant  theme  of  commendation 
among  the  later  French  sonnetteers.  But  it  is  to  Desportes 
that  Daniel  owes  most,  and  his  methods  of  handling  his  mate- 
rial may  be  judged  by  a  comparison  of  his  Sonnet  xxvi.  with 
Sonnet  Ixiii.  in  Desportes's  collection,  'Cleonice:  Dernieres 
Amours,'  which  was  issued  at  Paris  in  1575. 
Desportes's  sonnet  runs  : 

Je  verray  par  les  ans  vengeurs  de  mon  martyre 
Que  I'or  de  vos  cheveux  argente  deviendra, 
Que  de  vos  deux  soleils  la  splendeur  s'esteindra, 

Et  qu'il  faudra  qu'Amour  tout  confus  s'en  retire. 

La  beaute  qui  si  douce  4  present  vous  inspire, 
Cedant  aux  lois  du  Temps  ses  faveurs  reprendra, 
L'hiver,  de  vostre  teint  les  fleurettes  perdra, 

Et  ne  laissera  rien  des  thresors  que  i'admire. 

Cest  orgueil  desdaigneux  qui  vous  fait  ne  m'aimer, 

En  regret  et  chagrin  se  verra  transformer, 

Avec  le  changement  d'une  image  si  belle: 
Et  peut  estre  qu'alors  vous  n'aurez  desplaisir 
De  revivre  en  mes  vers  chauds  d'amoureux  desir, 

Ainsi  que  le  Phenix  au  feu  se  renouvelle. 

This  is  Daniel's  version,  which  he  sent  forth  as  an  original 
production : 

I  once  may  see,  when  years  may  wreck  my  wrong, 

And  golden  hairs  may  change  to  silver  wire ; 

And  those  bright  rays  (that  kindle  all  this  fire) 
Shall  fail  in  force,  their  power  not  so  strong. 
Her  beauty,  now  the  burden  of  my  song. 

Whose  glorious  blaze  the  world's  eye  doth  admire; 

Must  yield  her  praise  to  tyrant  Time's  desire; 
Then  fades  the  flower,  which  fed  her  pride  so  long. 
When  if  she  grieve  to  gaze  her  in  her  glass, 

Which  then  presents  her  winter-withered  hue: 
Go  you  my  verse !  go  tell  her  what  she  was ! 

For  what  she  was,  she  best  may  find  in  you. 
Your  fiery  heat  lets  not  her  glory  pass, 

But  Phcenix-like  to  make  her  live  anew. 


VOGUE   OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN   SONNET  43 1 

In  DaniePs  beautiful  sonnet  (xlix.)  beginning, 

Care-charmer  sleep,  son  of  the  sable  night, 
Brother  to  Death,  in  silent  darkness  born, 

he  has  borrowed  much  from  De  Baif  and  Pierre  de  Brach,  sonnet- 
teers  with  whom  it  was  a  convention  to  invocate  '  O  Sommeil 
chasse-soin.'  But  again  he  chiefly  relies  on  Desportes,  whose 
words  he  adapts  with  very  slight  variations.  Sonnet  Ixxiii.  of 
Desportes's  '  Amours  d'Hippolyte  '  opens  thus  : 

Sommeil,  paisible  fils  de  la  Xuict  solitaire  .  .  . 

0  frSre  de  la  Mort  que  tu  m'es  ennemi ! 

Daniel's  sonnets  were  enthusiastically  received.  With  some 
additions  they  were  republished  in  1594  with  his  narrative  poem, 
Fame  of  'The  Complaint  of  Rosamund."  The  volume  was 
Daniel's  called  '  Delia  and  Rosamund  Augmented.'  Spenser, 
sonnets.  j^  }-,jg  ^  Colin  Clout's  come  Home  again,'  lauded  the 
'  well-tuned  song '  of  Daniel's  sonnets,  and  Shakespeare  has  some 
claim  to  be  classed  among  Daniel's  many  sonnetteering  disciples. 
The  anonymous  author  of  '  Zepheria '  (1594)  declared  that  the 
'  sweet  tuned  accents  '  of  '  Delian  sonnetry '  rang  throughout 
England;  while  Bartholomew  GriflSn,  in  his  'Fidessa'  (1596), 
openly  plagiarised  Daniel,  invoking  in  his  Sonnet  xv.  '  Care- 
charmer  sleep,  brother  of  quiet  death.' 

In  September  of  the  same  year  (1592)  that  saw  the  first 
complete  version  of  Daniel's  *  Delia,'  Henry  Constable  published 
Constable's  '  ^^^^^  '•  ^'""^  Praises  of  his  Alistres  in  certaine  sweete 
'  Diana,"  Sonnets.'  Like  the  title,  the  general  tone  was  drawn 
^592.  from  Desportes's  '  Amours  de  Diane.'     Twenty-one 

poems  were  included,  all  in  the  French  vein.  The  collection 
was  reissued,  with  very  numerous  additions,  in  1594  under  the 
title  'Diana;  or,  The  excellent  conceitful  Sonnets  of  H.  C. 
Augmented  with  divers  Quatorzains  of  honourable  and  learned 
personages.'  This  volume  is  a  typical  venture  of  the  book- 
sellers.^ The  printer,  James  Roberts,  and  the  publisher,  Richard 
Smith,  supplied  dedications  respectively  to  the  reader  and  to 
Queen  Elizabeth's  ladies-in-waiting.     They  had  swept  together 

1  It  is  reprinted  in  Arbcr's  Garner,  ii.  225-64 


432  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

sonnets  in  manuscript  from  all  quarters,  and  presented  their  cus- 
tomers with  a  disordered  miscellany  of  what  they  called  '  orphan 
poems.'  Besides  the  twenty  sonnets  by  Constable,  eight  were 
claimed  for  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  the  remaining  forty-seven 
are  by  various  hands  which  have  not  as  yet  been  identified. 

In  1593  the  legion  of  sonnetteers  received  notable  reinforce- 
ments. In  May  came  out  Barnabe  Barnes's  interesting  volume, 
Barnes's  '  P''vrthenophil  and  Parthenope  :  Sonnets,  Madrigals, 
sonnets,  Elegies,  and  Odes.  To  the  right  noble  and  virtuous 
1593-  gentleman,    M.    William    Percy,    Esq.,    his    dearest 

friend.'  ^  The  contents  of  the  volume  and  their  arrangement 
closely  resemble  the  sonnet-collections  of  Petrarch  or  the 
'Amours'  of  Ronsard.  There  are  a  hundred  and  five  sonnets 
altogether,  interspersed  with  twenty-six  madrigals,  five  sestines, 
twenty-one  elegies,  three  '  canzons,'  and  twenty  '  odes,'  one  in 
sonnet  form.  There  is,  moreover,  included  what  purports  to  be 
a  translation  of  *  Moschus'  first  eidillion  describing  love,'  but 
what  is  clearly  a  rendering  of  a  French  poem  by  Amadis 
Jamin,  entitled  'Amour  Fuitif,  du  grec  de  Moschus,'  in  his 
'  Oiuvres  Poetiques,'  Paris,  1579.-  At  the  end  of  Barnes's 
volume  there  also  figure  si.x  dedicatory  sonnets.  In  Sonnet  xcv. 
Barnes  pays  a  compliment  to  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  '  the  Arcadian 
shepherd,  Astrophel,'  but  he  did  not  draw  so  largely  on  Sidney's 
work  as  on  that  of  Ronsard,  Desportes,  De  Baif,  and  Du  Bellay. 
Legal  metaphors  abound  in  Barnes's  poems,  but  amid  many 
crudities  he  reaches  a  high  level  of  beauty  in  Sonnet  Lxvi.,  which 
runs : 

Ah,  sweet  Content!  where  is  thy  mild  abode  ? 
Is  it  with  shepherds,  and  light-hearted  swains, 
Which  sing  upon  tlie  downs,  and  pipe  abroad, 
Tending  their  floclcs  and  cattle  on  the  plains  ? 

Ah,  sweet  Content !  where  dost  thou  safely  rest  ? 
In  Heaven,  with  Angels  ?  which  the  praises  sing 
Of  Him  that  made,  and  rules  at  His  behest, 
The  minds  and  hearts  of  every  living  thing. 


^  Arber's  Gamer,  v.  333-486. 

2  Ben  Jonson  developed  the  same  conceit  in  his  masque,  T/ie  Hue  and  Cry  after 
Cupid,  1608. 


VOGUE   OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN   SOXXET  433 

Ah,  sweet  Content!  where  doth  thine  harbour  hold? 
Is  it  in  churches,  with  religious  men. 
Which  please  the  gods  with  prayers  manifold  ; 
And  in  their  studies  meditate  it  then? 

Whether  thou  dost  in  Heaven  or  earth  appear ; 

Be  where  thou  wilt !     Thou  wilt  not  harbour  here  !  l 

In  August  1593  there  appeared  a  posthumous  collection  of 
sixty-one  sonnets  by  Thomas  Watson,  entitled  'The  Tears 
,  of  Fancie,  or  Love  Disdained.'  They  are  throughout 
'  Tears  of  "^f  the  imitative  type  of  his  previously  published  '  Cen- 
Fancie,'  turie  of  Love.'  Many  of  them  sound  the  same  note 
^^93'  as  Shakespeare's  sonnets  to  the  'dark  lady.' 

In  September  1593  followed  Giles  Fletcher's  '  Licia,  or 
Poems  of  Love  in  honour  of  the  admirable  and  singular  virtues 
Fletcher's  ^^  ^^^  Lady.'  This  collection  of  fifty-three  sonnets 
'  Licia,'  is  dedicated   to  the  wife  of  Sir  Richard  Mollineux. 

1593-  Fletcher  makes  no  concealment  that  his  sonnets  are 

literary  exercises.  '  For  this  kind  of  poetry.'  he  tells  the  reader, 
'  I  did  it  to  try  my  humour ; '  and  on  the  title-page  he  notes  that 
the  work  was  written  '  to  the  imitation  of  the  best  Latin  poets 
and  others.'  - 

The  most  notable  contribution  to  the  sonnet-literature 
of  1593  was  Thomas  Lodge's  'Phillis  Honoured  with  Pastoral 
J     ,    .  Sonnets,  Elegies,  and  Amorous  Delights.'  ^     Besides 

'  Phillis,'  forty  sonnets,  some  of  which  exceed  fourteen  lines 
1593-  in  length  and  others  are  shorter,  there  are  included 

three  elegies  and  an  ode.  Desportes  is  Lodge's  chief  master, 
but  he  had  recourse  to  Ronsard  and  other  French  contempo- 
raries. How  servile  he  could  be  may  be  learnt  from  a  com- 
parison of  his  Sonnet  xxxvi.  with  Desportes's  sonnet  from  •  Les 
Amours  de  Diane,'  livre  11.  sonnet  iii. 

Thomas  Lodge's  Sonnet  xxxvi.  nms  thus: 

If  so  I  seek  the  shades,  I  presently  do  see 
The  god  of  love  forsakes  his  bow  and  sit  me  by; 
If  that  I  think  to  write,  his  Muses  pliant  be 
If  so  I  plain  my  grief,  the  wanton  boy  will  cry. 

1  Dekker's  well-known  song,  '  Oh,  sweet  content,'  in  his  play  of  '  Patient 
Grisselde'  (1599),  echoes  this  sonnet  of  Barnes.  ^  Arber's  Garner,  viii  413-52 

2  There  is  a  convenient  reprint  of  Lodge's  Phillis  in  Elizabethan  Sonnet-Cycles 
b    Martha  Foote  Crow,  1896. 


434  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

If  I  lament  his  pride,  he  doth  increase  my  pain; 
If  tears  my  cfieeks  attaint,  his  cheeks  are  moist  with  moaji' 
If  I  disclose  the  wounds  the  which  my  heart  hath  slain, 
He  takes  his  fascia  off,  and  wipes  them  dry  anon. 

If  so  I  walk  the  woods,  the  woods  are  his  delight, 
If  I  myself  torment,  he  bathes  him  in  my  blood ; 
He  will  my  soldier  be  If  once  I  wend  to  fight. 
If  seas  delight,  he  steers  my  bark  amidst  the  hood. 

In  brief,  the  cruel  god  doth  never  from  me  go, 

But  makes  my  lasting  love  eternal  with  my  woe. 

Desportes   wrote    in    'Les   Amours   de    Diane,'   book   ll.    son- 
net iii. : 

Si  ie  me  sies  &  I'ombre,  aussi  soudainement 
Amour,  laissant  son  arc,  s'assiet  et  se  repose: 
Si  ie  pense  d.  des  vers,  ie  le  voy  qu'il  compose : 
Si  ie  plains  mes  douleurs,  il  se  plaint  hautement. 

Si  ie  me  plais  au  mal,  il  accroist  mon  tourment : 
Si  ie  respan  des  pleurs,  son  visage  il  arrose : 
Si  ie  monstre  la  playe  en  ma  poitrine  enclose, 
II  defait  son  bandeau  I'essuyant  doucement. 

Si  ie  vay  par  les  bois,  aux  bois  il  m'accompagne: 
Si  ie  me  suis  cruel,  dans  mon  sang  il  se  bagne: 
Si  ie  vais  d.  la  guerre,  il  deuient  mon  soldart: 

Si  ie  passe  la  mer,  il  conduit  ma  vacelle : 
Bref,  iamais  I'inhumain  de  moy  ne  se  depart, 
Pour  rendre  mon  amour  et  ma  peine  eternelle. 

Three  new  volumes  in  1594,  together  with  the  reissue  of 
Daniel's  'Delia'  and  of  Constable's  'Diana'  (in  a  piratical  mis- 
cellany of  sonnets  from  many  pens),  prove  the  steady  growth 
of  the  sonnetteering  vogue.  Michael  Drayton  in  June  pro- 
duced his  '  Ideas  Mirrour,  Amours  in  Quatorzains,'  containing 
Drayton's  fifty-one  '  Amours '  and  a  sonnet  addressed  to  '  his 
'Idea,' 1594.  ever  kind  Mecaenas,  Anthony  Cooke.'  Drayton 
acknowledged  his  devotion  to  'divine  Sir  Philip,'  but  by  his 
choice  of  title,  style,  and  phraseology  the  English  sonnetteer 
once  more  betrayed  his  indebtedness  to  Desportes  and  his 
compeers.  '  L'Idee '  was  the  name  of  a  collection  of  sonnets 
by  Claude  de  Pontoux  in  1579.  Many  additions  were  made 
by  Drayton  to  the  sonnets  that  he  published  in  1594,  and 
many  were  subtracted  before  1619,  when  there  appeared 
the  last  edition  that  was  prepared  in  Drayton's  lifetime.  A 
comparison  of  the  various  editions  (1594,  1599,  1605,  and  1619) 


VOGUE   OF  THE  ELIZABETHAN   SONNET  435 

shows  that  Drayton  published  a  hundred  sonnets,  bat  the  major- 
ity were  apparently  circulated  by  him  in  early  life.^ 

William  Percy,  the  'dearest  friend'  of  Barnabe  Barnes,  pub- 
lished in  1594,  in  emulation  of  Barnes,  a  collection  of  twenty 
p      ,,  '  Sonnets  to  the  fairest  Coelia.'  -     He  explains,  in  an 

'Coelia,'  address  to  the  reader,  that  out  of  courtesy  he  had 
1594-  lent  the  sonnets  to  friends,  who   had  secretly  com- 

mitted them  to  the  press.  Making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  he  had 
accepted  the  situation,  but  begged  the  reader  to  treat  them  as 
'toys  and  amorous  devices.' 

A  collection  of  forty  sonnets  or  'canzons,'  as  the  anonymous 
author  calls  them,  also  appeared  in  1594  with  the  title  'Zeph- 
'Zepheria,'    eria.' ^      In   some   prefatory   verses   addressed   'AUi 

1594-  veri  figlioli  delle  Muse,'  laudatory  reference  was  made 
to  the  sonnets  of  Petrarch,  Daniel,  and  Sidney.  Several  of  the 
sonnets  labour  at  conceits  drawn  from  the  technicalities  of  the 
law,  and  Sir  John  Davies  parodied  these  efforts  in  the  eighth 
of  his  'gulling  sonnets'  beginning,  'My  case  is  this,  I  love  Zeph- 
eria  briglit.' 

Four  interesting  ventures  belong  to  1595.  In  Januarv 
appended  to  Richard  Barnfield's  poem  of  '  Cynthia"  a  pane- 
gyric on  Queen  Elizabeth,  was  a  series  of  twenty  sonnets 
extolling  the  personal  charms  of  a  young  man,  in  emulation  of 
Virgil's  Eclogue  ii.,  in  which  the  shepherd  Coridon  addressed 
Barnfield's  the  shepherd-boy  Alexis.^  In  Sonnet  xx.  the  author 
Ganymede    ^^pressed  regret   that  the   task    of    celebrating   his 

1595-  young  friend's  praises  had  not  fallen  to  the  more 
capable  hand  of  Spenser  ('great  Colin,  chief  of  shepherds  all') 
or  Drayton  ('gentle  Rowland,  my  professed  friend').  Barnfield 
at  times  imitated  Shakespeare. 

Almost  at  the  same  date  as  Barnfield's  '  Cynthia '  made  its 
appearance,  there  was  published  the  more  notable  collection  by 
Soenser's  Edmund  Spenser  of  eighty-eight  sonnets,  which  in 
•Amoretti,'  reference  to  their  Italian  origin  he  entitled  '  Amo- 
1595-  retti.'  5     Spenser   had  already  translated  many  son- 

*  See  p.  no,  note.  2  Arber's  Garner,  vi.  135-49. 
3  lb.  V.  61-86. 

*  Reprinted  in  Arber's  English  Scholars'  Library,  1882. 

*  It  was  licensed  for  the  press  on  November  19,  1594. 


436  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

nets  on  pliilosophic  topics  of  Petrarch  and  Joachim  Du  Bellay. 
Some  of  the  '  Amoretti'  were  doubtless  addressed  by  Spenser  in 
1593  to  the  lady  who  became  his  wife  a  year  later.  But  the 
sentiment  was  largely  ideal,  and,  as  he  says  in  Sonnet  Ixxxvii., 
he  wrote,  like  Drayton,  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  '  Idaea.' 

An  unidentified  'E.  C,  Esq.,' produced  also  in  1595,  under 
the  title  of  '  Emaricdulfe,'  ^  a  collection  of  forty  sonnets,  echoing 
'  Emaiic-  English  and  French  models.  In  the  dedication  to  his 
dulfe,'  1595.  i  two  very  good  friends,  John  Zouch  and  Edward 
Fitton  Esquiers,'  the  author  tells  them  that  an  ague  confined 
him  to  his  chamber,  'and  to  abandon  idleness  he  completed  an 
idle  work  that  he  had  already  begun  at  the  command  and  service 
of  a  fair  dame.' 

To  1595  may  best  be  referred  the  series  of  nine  '  Gullinge 
sonnets,'  or  parodies,  which  Sir  John  Davies  wrote  and  circu- 
Sir  John  lated  in  manuscript,  in  order  to  put  to  shame  what 
Davies's  hg  regarded  as  'the  bastard  sonnets' in  vogue.  He 
Sonnets'  addressed  his  collection  to  Sir  Anthony  Cooke, 
I59S-  whom    Drayton     had     already    celebrated     as     the 

Mecaenas  of  his  sonnetteering  efforts.^  Davies  seems  to  have 
aimed  at  Shakespeare  as  well  as  at  insignificant  rhymers  like 
the  author  of  'Zepheria.'^  No.  viii.  of  Davies's  'gullinge 
sonnets,'  which  ridicules  the  legal  metaphors  of  the  sonnet- 
teers,  may  be  easily  matched  in  the  collections  of  Barnabe 
Barnes  or  of  the  author  of  'Zepheria,'  but  Davies's  phraseology 
suggests  that  he  also  was  glancing  at  Shakespeare's  legal  son- 
nets Ixxxvii.  and  cxxxiv.     Davies's  sonnet  runs : 

My  case  is  this,  I  love  Zeplieria  bright, 
Of  her  I  hold  my  heart  by  fealty : 
Which  I  discharge  to  her  perpetually. 
Yet  she  thereof  will  never  me  acquit[e]. 
For,  now  supposing  I  withhold  her  right, 
She  hath  distrained  my  heart  to  satisfy 
The  duty  which  I  never  did  deny, 
And  far  away  impounds  it  with  despite. 

1  Reprinted  for  the  Roxburghe  Club  in  A  Lamfort  Garland,  1881,  edited  by 
Mr.  Charles  Edmonds. 

2  Sir  John  Davies's  Complete  Poems,  edited  by  Dr.  Grosart,  ii.  51-62. 
'  See  p.  128,  note. 


VOGUE  OF  THE   ELIZABETHAX   SONNET  437 

I  labour  therefore  justly  to  repleave  [i.e.  recover] 

My  heart  which  she  unjustly  doth  impound. 

But  quick  conceit  which  now  is  Love's  high  shrieve 

Returns  it  as  esloyned  [Lf.  absconded],  not  to  be  found. 

Then  what  the  law  affords  I  only  crave, 

Her  heart  for  mine,  in  wit  her  name  to  have  {sic). 

'R.  L.,  gentleman,' probably  Richard  Linche,  published  in 
1596  thirty-nine  sonnets  under  the  title  '  Diella.'^  The  effort  is 
Linche's  thoroughly  conventional.  In  an  obsequious  address 
'Dieila,'  by  the  publisher,  Henry  Olney,  to  Anne,  wife  of  Sir 
1596.  Henry  Glenham,  Linche's  sonnets  are  described  as 

'  passionate.'  and  as  '  conceived  in  the  brain  of  a  gallant 
gentleman.' 

To  the  same  year  belongs  Bartholomew  Griffin's  '  Fidessa,' 
sixty-two  sonnets  inscribed  to  'William  Essex,  Esq.'  Griffin 
Griffin's  designates  his  sonnets  as  '  the  first  fruits  of  a  young 
'  Fidessa,"  beginner.'  He  is  a  shameless  plagiarist.  Daniel  is 
1596.  his  chief  model,  but  he  also  imitated  Sidney,  Watson, 

Constable,  and  Drayton.  Sonnet  iii.,  beginning  '  Venus  and 
young  Adonis  sitting  by  her,'  is  almost  identical  with  the  fourth 
poem  —  a  sonnet  beginning  'Sweet  Cytheraea,  sitting  by  a  brook' 
—  in  Jaggard's  piratical  miscellany,  'The  Passionate  Pilgrim,' 
which  bore  Shakespeare's  name  on  the  title-page."-^  Jaggard  doubt- 
less stole  the  poem  from  Griffin,  although  it  may  be  in  its  essen- 
.y,  tials  the  property  of  some  other  poet.     Three  beautiful 

Campion,  love-sonnets  by  Thomas  Campion,  which  are  found 
1596.  in  the  Harleian  MS.  6910.  are  there  dated  1596. ^ 

William  Smith  was  the  author  of  '  Chloris,'  a  third  collection 
of  sonnets  appearing  in  1596.*  The  volume  contains  forty-eight 
William  sonnets  of  love  of  the  ordinary  type,  with  three 
'  clil  \1s  '  adulating  Spenser  ;  of  these,  two  open  the  volume 
1596.  and  one  concludes  it.     Smith  says  that  his  sonnets 

were  'the  budding  springs  of  his  study.'  In  1600  a  license 
was  issued  by  the  Stationers'  Company  for  the  issue  of  '  Amours  ' 

1  Arber's  Garner,  vii.  185-208. 

'  /i.  V.  587-622. 

'  Cf.  Brj'dges's  Excerpta  Tudoriana,  1814,  i.  35-7.  One  was  printed  with  some 
alterations  in  Rosseter's  Book  0/  Ay  res  (1610),  and  another  in  the  Third  Book  0/ 
Ayres  (1617?);  see  Campion's  Works,  ed.  A.  H    Bullen,  pp    15-16,  102. 

■•  Arber's  Garner,  viii.  171-99. 


438  WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 

by  W.  S.  This  no  doubt  refers  to  a  second  collection  of  sonnets 
by  William  Smith.     The  projected  volume  is  not  extant.^ 

In  1597  there  came  out  a  similar  volume  by  Robert  Tofte, 
entitled  '  Laura,  the  Joys  of  a  Traveller,  or  the  Feast  of  Fancy.' 
The  book  is  divided  into  three  parts,  each  consisting  of  forty 
'  sonnets '  in  irregular  metres.  There  is  a  prose  dedication  to 
Lucy,  sister  of  Henry,  ninth  Earl  of  Northumberland.  Tofte 
tells  his  patroness  that  most  of  his  'toys'  'were 
Tofte's  conceived  in  Italy.'     As  its  name  implies,  his  work 

'  Laura,'  is  a  pale  reflection  of  Petrarch.  A  postscript  by  a 
^^^'  friend  —  'R.    B.'  —  complains   that  a  publisher  had 

intermingled  with  Tofte's  genuine  efforts  '  more  than  thirty  son- 
nets not  his.'  But  the  style  is  throughout  so  uniformly  tame  that 
it  is  not  possible  to  distinguish  the  work  of  a  second  hand. 

To  the  same  era  belongs  Sir  William  Alexander's  '  Aurora,' 
a  collection  of  a  hundred  and  six  sonnets,  with  a  few  songs 
SiiWilliam  ^^^  elegies  interspersed  on  French  patterns.  Sir 
Alexander's  William  describes  the  work  as  '  the  first  fancies  of 
'  Aurora.  ]-,jg  youth,'  and  formally  inscribes  it  to  Agnes,  Coun- 
tess of  Argyle.     It  was  not  published  till  1604. ^ 

Sir  Fulke  Greville,  afterwards  Lord  Brooke,  the  intimate 
friend  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  was  author  of  a  like  collection  of 
Sir  Fulke  sonnets  called  '  Caelica.'  The  poems  number  a 
Greville's  hundred  and  nine,  but  few  are  in  strict  sonnet  metre. 
'Caslica.'  Only  a  small  proportion  profess  to  be  addressed  to 
the    poet's    fictitious    mistress,    Caelica.      Many    celebrate    the 

1  See  p.  390  and  note. 

2  Practically  to  the  same  category  as  these  collections  of  sonnets  belong  the 
voluminous  laments  of  lovers,  in  six,  eight,  or  ten  lined  stanzas,  which,  though  not 
in  strict  sonnet  form,  closely  resemble  in  temper  the  sonnet-sequences.  Such  are 
lVi7loi>!c''s  Azu'sa,i^g4;  A'lcilia:  PJiiloparthen's  Loving  Folly, hy'].  C,  1595;  Arbor 
of  Amorous  Dettices,  1597  (containing  two  regular  sonnets)  by  Nicholas  Breton; 
Alba,  the  Mouths  Minde  of  a  Melancholy  Lover,  by  Robert  Tofte,  1598;  Dai- 
phantus,  or  the  Passions  of  Love,  by  Anthony  Scoloker,  1604;  Breton's  The  Pas- 
sionate Shepheard,  or  The  Shepheardcs  Loue:  set  downe  in  passions  to  his  Shep- 
heardesse  Aglaia:  -with  many  excellent  conceited  poems  and  pleasant  sonnets  fit 
for  young  heads  to  passe  aivay  idle  houres,  1604  (none  of  the  '  Sonets  '  are  in  sonnet 
metre;  and  John  Reynolds's  Dolarnys  Priinerose  .  .  .  ivherein  is  expressed  the 
liuely  passions  of  Zeale  and  Loue,  1606.  Though  George  Wither's  similar  pro- 
ductions— his  exquisitely  fanciful  Fidelia  (1617)  and  his  Faire-Virtiie,  the  Mistresse 
of  Phil' Arete  (1622)  —  were  published  at  a  later  period,  they  were  probably  designed 
in  the  opening  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


VOGUE  OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN   SONNET  439 

charms  of  another  beauty  named  Myra,  and  others  invoke 
Queen  Elizabeth  under  her  poetic  name  of  Cynthia  (cf.  Sonnet 
xvii.).  There  are  also  many  addresses  to  Cupid  and  medita- 
tions on  more  or  less  metaphysical  themes,  but  the  tone  is  never 
very  serious.  Greville  doubtless  wrote  the  majority  of  his 
'  Sonnets '  during  the  period  under  survey,  though  they  were  not 
published  until  their  author's  works  appeared  in  folio  for  the  first 
time  in  1633.  five  years  after  his  death. 

With  Tofte's  volume  in  1597  the  publication  of  collections 
of  love-sonnets   practically  ceased.      Only   two   collections   on 

„  ..  .  r  a  voluminous  scale  seem  to  have  been  written  in  the 
Estimate  of 

number  of     early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century.     About  1607 

love-son-  William  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  penned  a  series 
nets  issued  .  ...  ,        •  1  ,  .      , 

between        ot    Sixty-eight    interspersed   with    songs,    madrigals, 

1591  and  and  sextains,  nearly  all  of  wliich  were  translated  or 
adapted  from  modern  Italian  sonnetteers.^  About 
1610  John  Davies  of  Hereford  published  his  '  W^ittes  Pilgrim- 
age .  .  .  through  a  world  of  Amorous  Sonnets.'  Of  more  than 
two  hundred  separate  poems  in  this  volume,  only  the  hundred 
and  four  sonnets  in  the  opening  section  make  any  claim  to 
answer  the  description  on  the  title-page,  and  the  majority  of 
those  are  metaphysical  meditations  on  love  which  are  not 
addressed  to  any  definite  person.  Some  years  later  William 
Browne  penned  a  sequence  of  fourteen  love-sonnets  entitled 
'Caelia'  and  a  few  detached  sonnets  of  the  same  type.-  The 
date  of  the  production  of  Drummond's.  Davies's,  and  Browne's 
sonnets  excludes  them  from  the  present  field  of  view.  Omitting 
them,  we  find  that  between  1591  and  1597  there  had  been 
printed  nearly  twelve  hundred  sonnets  of  the  amorous  kind. 
If  to  these  we  add  Shakespeare's  poems,  and  make  allow- 
ance for  others  which,  only  circulating  in  manuscript,  have 
not  reached  us,  it  is  seen  that  more  than  two  hundred  love- 
sonnets  were  produced  in  each  of  the  six  years  under  survey. 
France  and  Italy  directed  their  literary  energies  in  like  direc- 
tion during  nearly  the  whole  of  the  century,  but  at  no  other 

iThey  were  first  printed  in  1656,  seven  years  after  the  author's  death,  in  Poems 
ty  that  famous  ivit,  IViUiam  Drummond,  London,  fol.  The  volume  was  edited  by 
Edward  Phillips,  Milton's  nephew.  The  best  modern  edition  is  that  edited  by  Mr. 
W.  C.  Ward  in  the  '  Muses'  Library  '  (1S94). 

-Cf  W'illiam  Browne's  Poems  in  '  Muses'  Library'  (1894),  ii.  217  seq. 


440  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

period  and  in  no  otlier  country  did  the  love-sonnet  dominate 
literature  to  greater  extent  than  in  England  between   1591  and 

1597- 

Of  sonnets  to  patrons  between  1591  and  1597,  of  which 
detached  specimens  may  be  found  in  nearly  every  published 
book  of  the  period,  the  chief  collections  were : 

A  long  series  of  sonnets  prefixed  to  '  Poetical  Exercises  of  a 
Vacant  Hour'  by  King  James  VI  of  Scotland,  1591  ;    twenty- 

TT  c        .     three  sonnets  in  Gabriel  Harvey's  '  Four  Letters  and 

II.  Sonnets  -' 

to  patrons,  certain  Sonnets  touching  Robert  Greene'  (1592), 
I59I-7'  including   Edmund   Spenser's   fine   sonnet   of    com- 

pliment addressed  to  Harvey ;  a  series  of  sonnets  to  noble 
patronesses  by  Constable  circulated  in  manuscript  about  1592 
(first  printed  in  '  Harleian  Miscellany,'  1813,  ix.  491);  six 
adulatory  sonnets  appended  by  Barnabe  Barnes  to  his  '  Par- 
thenophil'  in  May  1593;  four  sonnets  to  'Sir  Philip  Sidney's 
soul,'  prefixed  to  the  first  edition  of  Sidney's  '  Apologie  for 
Poetrie '  (1595);  seventeen  sonnets  which  were  originally  pre- 
fixed to  the  first  edition  of  Spenser's  'Faerie  Queene,'  bk.  i.-iii., 
in  1 590,  and  were  reprinted  in  the  edition  of  1 596 ;  ^  sixty 
sonnets  to  peers,  peeresses,  and  officers  of  state,  appended  to 
Henry  Locke's  (or  Lok's)  '  Ecclesiasticus '  (1597)  ;  forty  sonnets 
by  Joshua  Sylvester  addressed  to  Henry  IV  of  France  '  upon 
the  late  miraculous  peace  in  Fraunce '  (1599)  ;  Sir  John  Davies's 
series  of  twenty-six  octosyllabic  sonnets,  which  he  entitled 
'  Hymnes  of  Astrasa,'  all  extravagantly  eulogising  Queen  Eliza- 
beth (1599). 

The  collected  sonnets  on  religion  and  philosopliy  that  ap- 
peared in  the  period  1 591-7  include  sixteen  '  Spirituall  Sonnettes 

III.  Son-  to  the  honour  of  God  and  Hys  Saynts,'  written  by 
nets  on  Constable  about  1593,  and  circulated  only  in  manu- 
and^reH^  ^^  script ;  these  were  first  printed  from  a  manuscript  in 
gion.  the  Harleian  collection  (5993)  by  Thomas  Parke 
in  '  Helicona,'  1815,  "^'ol.  ii.     In  1595  Barnabe  Barnes  published 

1  Chapman  imitated  Spenser  by  appending  fourteen  like  sonnets  to  his  transla- 
tion of  Homer  in  1610;  they  were  increased  in  later  issues  to  twenty-two.  Very 
numerous  sonnets  to  patrons  were  appended  by  John  Davies  of  Hereford  to  his 
Microcosjtios  (1603)  and  to  his  Scoitr-gc  of  Folly  (1611).  '  Divers  sonnets,  epistles, 
&c.'  addressed  to  patrons  by  Joshua  Sylvester  between  1590  and  his  death  in  1618 
were  collected  in  the  1641  edition  of  his  Du  Bartas  his  divine  weekes  and  workes. 


VOGUE  OF  THE   ELIZABETHAN   SONNET  44 1 

a  '  Divine  Centurie  of  Spirituall  Sonnets/  and,  in  dedicating  the 
collection  to  Toby  Matthew,  bishop  of  Durham,  mentions  that 
they  were  written  a  year  before,  while  travelling  in  France. 
They  are  closely  modelled  on  the  two  series  of  '  Sonnets 
Spirituels'  which  the  Abbe  Jacques  de  Billy  published  in  Paris  in 
1573  and  1578  respectively.  A  long  series  of  '  Sonnets  Spirituels' 
written  by  Anne  de  Marquets,  a  sister  of  the  Dominican  Order, 
who  died  at  Poissy  in  1598,  was  first  published  in  Paris  in  1605. 
In  1594  George  Chapman  published  ten  sonnets  in  praise  of 
philosophy,  which  he  entitled  'A  Coronet  for  his  Mistress  Philos- 
ophy.' In  the  opening  poem  he  states  that  his  aim  was  to  dis- 
suade poets  from  singing  in  sonnets  '  Love's  Sensual  Empery.' 
In  1597  Henry  Locke  (or  Lok)  appended  to  his  verse-rendering 
of  Ecclesiastes  ^  a  collection  of  •  Sundrie  Sonets  of  Christian 
Passions,  with  other  Affectionate  Sonets  of  a  Feeling  Conscience.' 
Lok  had  in  1593  obtained  a  license  to  publish  "a  hundred  Son- 
nets on  Meditation,  Humiliation,  and  Prayer,'  but  that  work  is 
not  extant.  In  the  volume  of  1597  his  sonnets  on  religious  or 
philosophical  themes  number  no  fewer  than  three  hundred  and 
twenty-eight. - 

Thus  in  the  total  of  sonnets  published  between  1591  and 
1597  must  be  included  at  least  five  hundred  sonnets  addressed 
to  patrons,  and  as  many  on  philosophy  and  religion.  The 
aggregate  far  exceeds  two  thousand. 

^  Remy  Belleau  in  1566  brought  out  a  similar  poetical  version  of  the  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes  entitled  I'anite. 

-  There  are  forty-eight  sonnets  on  the  Trinity  and  similar  topics  appended  to 
Davies's  Wiltes  Pilgrimage  (1610?). 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE    ON   THE   SONNET  IN 
FRANCE,  1 550-1 600 

In  the  earlier  years  of  the  sixteenth  century  Melin  de  Saint- 
Gelais  (1487-1558)  and  Clement  Marot  (1496-1544)  made  a  few 
scattered  efforts  at  sonnetteering  in  France ;  and  Maurice  Seve 
laid  down  the  lines  of  all  sonnet-sequences  on  themes  of  love 

in  his  dixains  entitled  'Delie'  (1544).  But  it  was 
(1524-85)  Ronsard  (1524-85),  in  the  second  half  of  the  cen- 
and  '  La        tury,  who  first  gave  the  sonnet  a  pronounced  vogue  in 

France.  The  sonnet  was  handled  with  the  utmost 
assiduity  not  only  by  Ronsard,  but  by  all  the  literary  comrades 
whom  he  gathered  round  him,  and  on  whom  he  bestowed  the 
title  of  '  La  Pleiade.'  The  leading  aim  that  united  Ronsard 
and  his  friends  was  the  re-formation  of  the  French  language 
and  literature  on  classical  models.  But  they  assimilated  and 
naturalised  in  France  not  only  much  that  was  admirable  in 
Latin  and  Greek  poetry,  ^  but  all  that  was  best  in  the  recent 
Italian  literature.^     A'though  they  were  learned  poets,  Ronsard 

'  Graphic  illustrations  of  th  attitude  of  Ronsard  and  bis  friends  to  a  Greek  poet  like 
Anacreon  appear  in  A  nacreon  etles  Poetnes  anacreoiitiqucs  Texte grec  avec  les  Tra- 
ductions et  Imitatio7is  des  Poctes  du  XVI^  siecle,  par  A.  Delboulle  (Havre,  i8gi). 
A  translation  of  Anacreon  by  Remy  Belleau  appeared  in  1556.  Cf.  Ste.-Beuve's 
essay,  '  Anacreon  au  XVI*^  siecle,'  in  his  Tableau  de  la  Poisie  fratiqaise  an  XVI^ 
siecle  (1893^  pp.  432-47.  In  the  same  coxme.ci\ov\  Rccueil  des  plus  beaux  Epi- 
grammes  grecs,  mis  en  vers  franqois,  par  Pierre  Tamisier  tedit.  1617),  is  of  interest. 

^  Italy  was  the  original  home  of  the  sonnet,  and  it  was  as  popular  a  poetic  form 
with  Italian  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century  as  with  those  of  the  three  preceding 
centuries.  The  Italian  poets  whose  sonnets,  after  those  of  Petrarch,  were  best  known 
in  England  and  France  in  the  later  years  of  the  si,\teenth  century  were  Serafino 
deir  Aquila  (i466-i5oo\  Jacopo  Sannazzaro  (1458-15301,  Agnolo  Firenzuola  (1497- 
I547>,    Cardinal    Bembo  fi470-i547),  Gaspara   Stampa    (1524-53),    Pietro    Aretino 


THE  SONNET  IN  FRANCE  443 

and  the  majority  of  his  associates  had  a  natural  lyric  vein, 
which  gave  their  poetry  the  charms  of  freshness  and  spontaneity. 
The  true  members  of  '  La  Pleiade.'  according  to  Ronsard's 
own  statement,  were,  besides  himself,  Joachim  du  Bellay  (1524- 
60);  Estienne  Jodelle  (1532-73);  Remy  Belleau  (1528-77); 
Jean  Daurat-Dinemandy,  usually  known  as  Daurat  or  Dorat 
(1508-88),  Ronsard's  classical  teacher  in  early  life;  Jean- 
Antoine  de  Baif  (1532-89);  and  Ponthus  de  Thyard  (1521- 
1605).  Other  of  Ronsard's  literary  allies  are  often  loosely 
reckoned  among  the 'Pleiade.'  These  writers  include  Jean  de 
la  Peiiise  (1529-54).  Olivier  de  Magny  (1530-59),  Amadis 
Jamyn  (i538?-85),  Jean  Passerat  (1534-1602),  Philippe  Des- 
portes  (1546-1606),  Estienne  Pasquier  (1529-1615),  Scevole  de 
Sainte-Marthe(i536-i623),  and  Jean  Bertaut(i552-i6ii).  These 
Q  subordinate  members  of  the  '  Pleiade '  were  no  less 

1 1546-  devoted  than  the  original  members  to  sonnetteering. 

1606).  Qf  those  in  this  second   rank,  Desportes  was  most 

popular  in  France  as  well  as  in  England.  Although  many  of 
Desportes's  sonnets  are  graceful  in  thought  and  melodious  in 
rhythm,  most  of  them  abound  in  overstrained  conceits.  Not 
only  was  Desportes  a  more  slavish  imitator  of  Petrarch  than  the 
members  of  the  '  Pleiade,'  but  he  encouraged  numerous  disciples 
to  practice  'Petrarchism,'  as  the  imitation  of  Petrarch  was 
called,  beyond  healthful  limits.  Under  the  influence  of  Des- 
portes the  French  sonnet  became,  during  the  latest  years  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  little  more  than  an  empty  and  fantastic 
echo  of  the  Italian. 

The  following  statistics  will  enable  the  reader  to  realise  how 
closely  the  sonnetteering  movement  in  France  adumbrated  that 


(1492-1557),  Bernardo  Tasso  (1493-1568),  Luigi  Tansillo  (1510-68),  Gabriello 
Fiamma  {d.  1585),  Torquato  Tasso  (1544-95),  Luigi  Groto  {fl.  1570),  Giovanni 
Battista  Guarini  (1537-1612),  and  Giovanni  Battista  Marino  (1565-1625)  (cf.  Tira- 
boschi's  Storia  della  Leticratura  Italiajta,  1770-82;  Dr.  Garnett's  History  0/ 
Italian  Literature,  1897;  and  Symonds's  Renaissance  in  Italy,  edit.  1898, 
vols.  iv.  and  vi.).  The  notes  to  Watson's  Passionate  Centnrie  of  Love,  published 
in  1582  (see  p.  103,  note  i,  supra) ;  to  Davison's  Poetical  Rhapsody,  edited  by  Mr. 
A.  H.  Bullen  in  1891,  and  to  the  Poems  of  Drummo7id  of  Ha-juthornden,  edited  by 
Mr.  W.  C.  Ward  in  1894,  give  many  illustrations  of  English  sonnetteers'  indebted- 
ness to  Serafino,  Groto,  Marino,  Guarini,  Tasso,  and  other  Italian  sonnetteers  of  the 
sixteenth  century. 


444  WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

in  England.  The  collective  edition  in  1584  of  the  works  of  Ron- 
sard,  the  master  of  the  '  Pleiade,'  contains  more  than  nine  hundred 
Chief  col-  separate  sonnets  arranged  under  such  titles  as  '  Amours 
lections  of     de   Cassandre,'    'Amours  de  Marie,'    'Amours  pour 

Frenchson-   Astr^e,'  'Amours   pour   Hdlene':    besides  'Amours 

nets  pub-        t~>.  ,  ,       r^  t^. 

lished  be-      Divers     and   '  Sonnets    Divers,    complimentary   ad- 

tvveen  1550  dresses  to  friends  and  patrons.  Du  Bellay's  '  Olive,' 
^  '^'  a  collection  of  love  sonnets,  first  published  in  1549, 
reached  a  total  of  a  hundred  and  fifty.  '  Les  Regrets,'  Du  Bellay's 
sonnets  on  general  topics,  some  of  which  Edmund  Spenser  first 
translated  into  English,  numbered  in  the  edition  of  1565  a 
hundred  and  eighty-three.  De  Baif  published  two  long  series 
of  sonnets,  entitled  respectively  'Les  Amours  de  Meline'  (1552) 
and  'Les  Amours  de  Francine'  (1555).  Amadis  Jamyn  was 
responsible  for  '  Les  Amours  d'Oriane,'  '  Les  Amours  de 
Calliree,'  and  'Les  Amours  d'Artemis '  (iS7S)-  Desportes's 
'Premieres  CEuvres '  (1575)^  a  very  popular  book  in  England, 
included  more  than  three  hundred  sonnets  —  a  hundred  and  fifty 
being  addressed  to  Diane,  eighty-six  to  Hippolyte,  and  ninety- 
one  to  Cleonice.  Belleau  brought  out  a  volume  of  '  Amours ' 
in  1576;  and  Ponthus  de  Thyard  produced  in  1587  his  '  Erreurs 
Amoureuses,'  sonnets  addressed  to  Pasithee. 

Among  other  collections  of  sonnets  published  by  less  known 
writers  of  the  period,  and  arranged  here  according  to  date  of 
Minor  col-  first  publication,  were  those  of  Guilhuime  des  Autels, 
lectioiis  of  'Amoureux  Repos'  (1553);  Olivier  de  Magny, 
sonnets  'Amours.  Soupirs,'  &c.   (1553,   1559);    Louise  Labe, 

published  '  O^uvres '  (1555);  Jacques  Tahureau,  'Odes,  Son- 
ISS3  a^nd  ^^^^s,'  &c.  (1554,  1 574)  :  Claude  de  Billet,  •  Ainalthee.' 
1605.  a   hundred   and   twenty-eight  love  sonnets    (1561); 

Vauquelin  de  la  Fresnaye,  '  Foresteries '  (1555  et  annis  seq.)  ; 
Jacques  Grevin,  'Olympe'  (1561);  Nicolas  Ellain,  -Sonnets' 
(1561);  Sc^vole  de  Sainte-AIarthe.  '  Qiuvres  Frant^aises'  (1569, 
1579);  Estienne  de  la  Boetie,  *  CEuvres '  (1572),  and  twenty- 
nine  sonnets  published  with  Montaigne's  '  Essais '  (1580);  Jean 
et  Jacques  de  la  Taille,  'CEuvres'  (1573);  Jacques  de  Billy, 
'Sonnets  Spirituels'  (first  series  1573,  second  series  1578); 
Estienne  Jodelle,  '  CEuvres  Poetiques"  (1574);  Claude  de  Pon- 


THE  SONNET  IN  FRANCE  445 

toux,  'Sonnets  de  L'Idde'  (1579);  Les  Dames  des  Roches, 
'  CEuvres '  (1579,  1584);  Pierre  de  Brach,  "Amours  d'Aymee ' 
{circa  1580);  Gilles  Durant,  'Poesies'  —  sonnets  to  Charlotte 
and  Caniille  (1587,  1594)  ;  Jean  Passerat,  '  Vers  .  .  .  d'Amours  ' 
(1597);  and  Anne  de  Marquet,  who  died  in  1588,  'Sonnets 
Spirituels  '  (1605).! 

1  There  are  modern  reprints  of  most  of  these  books,  but  not  of  all.  There  is  a 
good  reprint  of  Ronsard's  works,  edited  by  M.  P.  Blanchemain,  in  La  Bibliotheque 
Elzez'irienne,  8  vols.  1867;  the  Etude  sur  la  Vie  de  Ronsard,  in  the  eighth  vol- 
ume, is  useful.  The  works  of  Remy  Belleau  are  issued  in  the  same  series.  The 
writings  of  the  seven  original  members  of  '  La  Pleiade  '  are  reprinted  in  La  Pleiadi 
Fratiqaise,  edited  by  Marty-Laveaux,  16  vols.,  1866-93.  Maurice  Seve's  Delie  was 
reissued  at  Lyon  in  1862.  Pierre  de  Brach's  poems  were  carefully  edited  by  Rein- 
hold  Dezeimeris  (2  vols.  Paris,  1862).  A  complete  edition  of  Desportes's  works, 
edited  by  Alfred  Michiels,  appeared  in  1863.  Prosper  Blanchemain  edited  a  reissue 
of  the  works  of  Louise  Labe  in  1875.  The  works  of  Jean  de  la  Taille,  of  Amadis 
Jamyn,  and  of  Guillaume  des  Autels  are  reprinted  in  Tresor  des  Vieux  Poetes 
Franqais  (1877  et  annis  seq.).  See  Ste.-Beuve's  Tableau  Historique  et  Critique 
de  la  Poesie  Franqais  du  XVI"  Siecle  (Paris,  1893) ;  Henry  Francis  Gary's  Early 
French  Poets  (London,  1846);  Becq  de  Fouquieres's  CEuvres  choisies  des  Poetes 
Franqais  du  XVI^  Siecle  contemporains  avec  Konsard  (1880),  and  the  same 
editor's  selections  from  De  Baif,  Du  Bellay,  and  Ronsard;  Darmesteter  et  Hatzfeld's 
Le  Seizieme  Siecle  en  France —  Tableau  de  la  Litterature  et  de  la  Langue  (6th 
edit.,  1897) ;  and  Petit  de  Julleville's  Histoire  de  la  Langue  et  de  la  Litterature 
Fratiqaise  (1897,  iii.  136-260). 


INDEX 


Abbey,  Mr.  E.  A.,  342 

Abbott,  Dr.  E.  A.,  364 

Actor,  Shakespeare  as  an,  43-45. 
See  also  Roles,  Shakespeare's 

Actors  :  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  10,  33  ; 
the  players'  licensing  Act  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  34;  boy-actors,  34,  35, 
38, 213  ;  companies  of  adult  actors, 
in  1587.35;  patronage  of,  35,  36; 
230  seq. ;  women's  parts  piayed 
by  men  or  boys,  38  and  n  2,  334, 
335  ;  tours  in  the  provinces,  39-42 ; 
foreign  tours,  42 ;  Shakespeare's 
alleged  scorn  of  their  calling,  44, 
45 ;  '  advice  '  to,  in  Hamlet,  45  ; 
their  incomes,  198,  199  and  n  2, 
201 ;  strife  between  adult  and  boy 
actors,  213-17,  221 ;  the  first  sub- 
stitution of  women  for  boys  in 
female  parts,  334,  335 

Adam,  in  As  You  Like  It,  played 
by  Shakespeare,  44 

Adaptations  of  plays  by  Shakespeare, 
56 

Adaptations  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
at  the  Restoration,  331,  332 

Adulation,  extravagance  of,  in  the 
days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  137,  138, 
and  n  2 

.^schylus,  Hamlet's  '  sea  of  troubles ' 
paralleled  in  the  Persae  of,  13  n\ 
resemblance  between  Lady  Afac- 
beth  and  Clytemnestra  in  the  Aga- 
■memnon  of,  13  n 

./Esthetic  school  of  Shakespearean 
criticism,  333 

Alexander,  Sir  William,  sonnets  by, 
438 


I  Alleyn,  Edward,  manages  for  a  time 
the  amalgamated  companies  of  the 
Admiral  and  Lord  Strange,  37; 
pays  fivepence  for  the  pirated  Son- 
nets, 90  n ;  his  large  savings,  204, 
362 

.•Xllot,  Robert,  312 

All's  Well  that  Ends  Well :  sonnet, 
84;  probable  date  of  produc- 
tion, 162;  source  of  plot,  163; 
probably  identical  with  Lotie's 
Labour's  Won,  162;  characters  of, 
163.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

America,  enthusiasm  for  Shake- 
speare in,  341,  342;  copies  of  the 
First  Folio  in,  308,  310  n 

Amner,  Rev.  Richard,  321 

'  Amoretti,"  Spenser's,  115,  435  and 

n  5.  436 

'  Amours '  by  '  J.  D.,'  390  and  « 

Amphitruo  of  Plautus,  probably  sug- 
gested a  scene  in  The  Comedy  of 
Errors,  54 

'Amyntas,'  complimentary  title  of, 
385  n  2 

Angelo,  Michael,  'dedicatory'  son- 
nets of,  138  n  2 

'Annals  of  Great  Brittaine,'  184  n 

'Anthia  and  Abrocomas,'  by  Xeno- 
phon  Ephesius,  the  supposed  orig- 
inal of  the  story  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  55  7!  I 

Antony  and  Cleopatra  :  38  n  2,  143 
n  2 ;  the  longest  of  the  poet's  plays, 
224  ;  date  of  entry  in  the  '  Stationers' 
Registers,'  244;  date  of  publica- 
tion, 245 ;  the  story  derived  from 


447 


448 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


APOLLONIUS 

Plutarch,  245 ;  dramatic  power  of 
Acts  IV.  and  v.,  245;  the  style, 
245.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(bibliography),  301-25 

Apollotiiiis  and  Silla,  Historie  of, 
210 

'  Apologie  for  Poetrie,'  Sidney's, 
allusion  to  the  conceit  of  the  im- 
mortalising power  of  verse,  114; 
allusion  to  the  adulation  of  patrons, 
138,  440. 

'Apology  for  Actors,'  Heyvvood's, 
182 

Apsley,  William,  one  of  the  book- 
sellers who  distributed  the  pirated 
Sonnets,  90,  304,  312 

'Arcadia,'  Sidney's,  88  ;?,  241  and 
11  2,  429 

Arden  family,  position  in  Warwick- 
shire of,  6,  191 

Arden  family  of  Alvanley,  192 

Arden,  Alice,  7 

Arden,  Edward,  executed  for  com- 
plicity in  a  Popish  plot,  6 

Arden,  Joan,  12 

Arden,  Mary.  See  Shakespeare, 
Mary 

Arden,  Robert  (i),  sheriff  of  War- 
wickshire and  Leicestershire  in 
1438,  6 

Arden,  Robert  (2),  landlord  at  Snit- 
terfield  of  Richard  Shakespeare, 
who  was  probably  the  poet's  grand- 
fiither,  3,  6;  marriage  of  his  daugh- 
ter Mary  to  John  Shakespeare,  6, 
7  ;  his  family  and  second  marriage, 
6 ;  his  property  and  his  will,  7 

Arden,  Thomas,  grandfather  of 
Shakespeare's  mother,  6 

Ai-dcn  of  Feverskam,  sometimes  as- 
signed to  Shakespeare,  71 

Ariel,  character  of,  257 

AriodaiUe  and  Ginevra,  Historie  of, 
208 

Ariosto,  Gli  Suppositi  of,  164;  Or- 
lando Furioso  of,  tells  story  of 
Much  Ado  about  Nothi^tg,  208 

Aristotle,  quotation  from,  made  by 
both  Shakespeare  and  Bacon, 
370  « 

Armado,  in  Love's  Labour  s  Lost, 
51  n,  62 

Armenian  language,  translation  of 
Shakespeare  m  the,  354 


AVISA 

Arms,  coat  of,  Shakespeare's,  189, 
190,  191,  193  ■ 

Arms,  College  of  applications  of 
the  poet's  father  for  a  grant  of 
arms  to,  2,  10  n,  188-92 

Arne,  Dr.,  334 

Arnold,  Klatthew,  327  n  i 

Art  in  England,  its  indebtedness  to 
Shakespeare,  340,  341 

As  You  Like  It :  allusion  to  the  part 
of  Rosalind  being  played  by  a  boy, 
38  ti  2 ;  ridicule  of  foreign  travel, 
42  «  2 ;  acknowledgments  to  Mar- 
lowe (III.  V.  8),  64;  Marlowe's 
'Hero  and  Leander'  quoted,  64; 
adapted  from  Lodge's  '  Rosalynde,' 
209 ;  addition  of  new  characters, 
209 ;  its  pastoral  character,  209 ; 
said  to  have  been  performed  be- 
fore King  James  at  Wilton,  232 
71  I,  411  n.  For  editions  see  Sec- 
tion xix.  (Bibliography),  301-25 

Asbies,  the  chief  property  of  Robert 
Arden  at  Wilmcote,  7  ;  mortgaged 
to  Edmund  Lambert,  12,  26; 
Shakespeare's  endeavour  to  re- 
cover, 195 

Ashbee,  Mr.  E.  W.,  302  ;/ 

Aston  Cantloue,  6;  place  of  the  mar- 
riage of  Shakespeare's  parents,  7 

'Astrophel,'  apostrophe  to  Sidney  in 
Spenser's,  143  n  2 

'Astrophel  and  Stella,'  83;  the  metre 
of,  95  //  2;  address  to  Cupid,  97  «; 
the  praise  of  '  blackness  '  in  Sonnet 
vii.  of,  119  and  71  i,  153  n  i;  sub- 
ject and  editions  of,  428,  429 

Aubrey,  John,  the  poet's  first  biog- 
rapher, on  John  Shakespeare's 
trade,  4,  18;  on  the  poet's  know- 
ledge of  Latin,  16;  lines  quoted 
by,  on  John  Combe,  269  «;  on 
Shakespeare's  genial  disposition, 
278  ;  value  of  his  biography  of  the 
poet,  362,  414 

'Aurora,'  title  of  Sir  W.  Alexander's 

-    collection  of  sonnets.  438 

Autobiographical  features  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  164-7,  168 

Autobiographical  features  of  Shake- 
speare's sonnets,  the  question  of, 
100,  109,  125,  152,  160 

Autographs  of  the  poet,  284-6 

'  Avisa,'  VVillobie's  story  of,  155 


INDEX 


449 


Ayrer,  Jacob,  similarity  of  the  story 
of  The  Tempest  to  the  story  in  Die 
schone  Sidea  by,  253  and  «  i 

Ayscough,  Samuel,  364  « 

Bacox,  Miss  Delia,  371 

Bacon  Society,  372 

Bacon-Shakespeare  controversy  (Ap- 
pendix II.),  370-3 

Baddesley  Clinton,  the  Shakespeares 
of,  3 

Baif,  De,  plagiarised  indirectly  by 
Shakespeare,  iii  and  «  ;  indebted- 
ness of  Daniel  and  others  to,  431, 
432;  one  of  '  La  Pleiade,'  443,  444 

Bandello,  the  story  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  in,  55  «  i ;  the  story  of  Hero 
and  Claudio  in,  208  ;  the  story  of 
Twelfth  Night  in,  210 

Barante  on  Shakespeare,  350 

Barnard,  Sir  John,  second  husband 
of  the  poet's  granddaughter  Eliza- 
beth, 282 

Barnes,  Barnabe,  legal  terminology 
in  his  Sonnets,  32  11  2,  109,  112; 
and  (Appendix  IX.)  432;  his 
sonnets  of  vituperation,  121 ;  the 
probable  rival  of  Shakesp^are  for 
Southampton's  favour,  131,  132, 
133,  135  n\  his  sonnets,  132,  133, 
432 ;  expressions  in  his  sonnet 
(xlix.)  adopted  by  Shakespeare, 
152  n ;  sonnet  to  Lady  Bridget 
Manners,  379  71 ;  sonnet  to  South- 
ampton, 384;  Sonnet  Ixvi.  ('Ah, 
sweet  Content')  quoted,  432;  his 
six  sonnets  to  ])atrons,  440;  his 
religious  sonnets,  441 

Barnfield,  Richard,  feigning  old  age 
in  his  'Affectionate  Shepherd,' 
86  «;  his  adulation  of  Queen  Eliz- 
abeth in  '  Cynthia,"  137  11,  435 ; 
sonnets  addressed  to  '  Ganymede,' 
138  «  2,  435;  predicts  immortality 
for  Shakespeare,  179  ;  chief  author 
of  the  '  Passionate  Pilgrim,"  182 
and  n,  397 

Bartholomew  Fair,  256 

Bartlett,  Mr.  John,  364 

Barton  collection  of  Shakespeareana 
at  Boston,  Mass.,  341 

Barton-on-the-Heath,  12;  identical 
with  the  '  Burton "  in  the  Taming' 
of  The  Shrew,  164 


Bathurst,  Charles,  an  authority  on 
Shakespeare's  versification,  49  n 

Baynes,  Thomas  Spencer,  365 

Beale,  Francis,  389 

'  Bear  Garden  in  Southvvark,  The,' 
one  of  the  poet's  lodgings  said  to 
have  been  near,  38 

Bearley,  6 

Beaumont,  Francis,  on  the  Mermaid 
tavern,  177 

Beaumont,  Sir  John,  388 

Bedford,  Edward  Russell,  third  Earl 
of,  his  marriage  to  Lucy  Haring- 
ton  perhaps  celebrated  in  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream,  161 

Beeston,  William  (a  seventeenth- 
century  actor),  on  Shakespeare  as 
a  schoolmaster,  29;  on  the  poet's 
acting,  43,  361 

Bellay,  Joachim  du,  Spenser's  trans- 
lations of  his  sonnets,  loi,  105  n, 
432,  436,  443,  444 

Belleau,    Remy,  441    n    i,    443,   444, 

445  « 

Belleforest,  Shakespeare's  indebted- 
ness to  the  '  Histoires  Tragiques  ' 
of,  14,  208,  222 ;  translates  the  story 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  55  11  i 

Benda,  J.  W.  O.,  German  translation 
of  Shakespeare  by,  344 

Benedick  and  his  '  halting  sonnet,' 
108,  208 

Benedix,  J.  R.,  opposition  to  Shake- 
spearean worship  by,  345 

Bensley,  Robert,  actor,  338 

Bentley,  R.,  313 

Berlioz,  Hector,  351 

Bermudas,  the,  wreck  of  Sir  George 
Somers's  fleet  on,  the  groundwork 
of  The  Tempest,  252 

Berners,  Lord,  translation  of  '  Huon 
of  Bordeaux  '  by,  162 

Bernhardt,  Madame  Sarah,  351 

Bertaut,  Jean,  443 

Betterton,  Mrs.,  335 

Betterton,  Thomas,  33,  332,  334,  335, 
362 

Bianca  and  her  lovers,  story  of, 
partly  drawn  fi-om  the  '  Supposes ' 
of  George  Gascoigne,  164 

Bible,  the,  Shakespeare's  acquaint- 
ance with,  16,  17  and  n  i 

Bibliography  of  Shakespeare,  299-325 

Bidlord,  near  Stratford,  local  legend 


450 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


BIOGRAPHY 

respecting  a  drinking  bout  at, 
271 

Biography  of  the  poet,  sources  of 
(Appendix  I.),  361-5 

Birmingham,  memorial,  Shakespeare 
library  at,  298 

Biron,  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  51 
and  n 

Birth  of  Merl'm,  181 

Birthplace,  Shakespeare's,  the  ques- 
tion of,  8,  9 

'Bisson,'  use  of  the  word,  317 

Blackfriars,  Shakespeare's  purchase 
of  property  in,  267 

Blackfriars  Theatre,  built  by  James 
Burbage  (1596),  38,  200;  leased 
to  '  the  Queen's  Children  of  the 
Chapel,"  38,  202,  213;  not  occu- 
pied by  Sliakespeare's  company 
until  1609,  38 ;  litigation  of  Bur- 
bage's  heirs,  200;  Shakespeare's 
interest  in,  201,  202 ;  Shakespeare's 
disposal  of  his  shares  in,  264 

'  Blackness,'  Shakespeare's  praise  of, 
118-20;  cf.  155.  See  also  Fitton, 
Mary 

Blades,  William,  364 

Blind  Beggar  of  Alexandria,  Chap- 
man's, 51  n 

Blount,  Edward,  publisher,  92,  135  n, 
183,  244,  304,  305,  312,  393,  394 
and  n 

Blurt,  Master  Constable,  51  n 

Boaden,  James,  406  h 

Boar's  Head  Tavern,  170 

Boas,  Mr.  F.  S.,  365 

Boccaccio,  Shakespeare's  indebted- 
ness to,  163,  249,  251  and  «  2 

Bodenstedt,  Friedrich  von,  German 
translation  of  Shakespeare  by,  344 

Bohemia,  allotted  a  seashore  in 
Winter's   Tale,  251 

Bohemia,  translations  of  Shake- 
speare in,  354 

Boiardo,  243 

Bond  against  impediments  respect- 
ing Shakespeare's  marriage,  20, 
21 

Bonian,  Richard,  printer,  226 

Booth,  Barton,  actor,  335 

Booth,  Edwin,  342 

Booth,  Junius  Brutus,  342 

Booth,  Lionel,  311 

Borck,  Baron  C.  W.  von,  translation 


of  yulius  CcEsar  into  German  by 

343 

Boswell,  James,  334 

Boswell,  James  (the  younger),  322, 
405  M 

Boswell-Stone,  Mr.  W.  G.,  364 

Bottger,  A.,  German  translation  of 
Shakespeare  by,  344 

Boy-actors,  34,  35,  38 ;  the  strife  be- 
tween adult  actors  and,  213-7 

Boydell,  John,  his  scheme  for  illus- 
trating the  work  of  the  poet,  341 

Bracebridge,  C.  H.,  364 

Brach,  Pierre  de,  his  sonnet  on  Sleep 
echoed  in  Daniel's  Sonnet  xlix., 
loi  and  n  i,  431,  445  n 

Brandes,  Mr.  Georg,  365 

Brathwaite,  Richard,  388,  398 

Breton,  Nicholas,  homage  paid  to 
the  Countess  of  Pembroke  in  two 
of  his  poems,  138  n  2,  417 

Brewster,  E.,  313 

Bridgeman,  Mr.  C.  O.,  415  n 

Bright,  James  Heywood,  406  n 

Broken  Heart,  Ford's,  similarity  of 
theme  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnet 
cxxvi.  with  that  of  a  song  in,  97  « 

Brooke  or  Broke,  Arthur,  his  trans- 
lation from  Bandello  of  the  story 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  55;  Romeus 
and  Juliet  of,  322 

Brooke,  Ralph,  complains  about 
Shakespeare's    coat-of-arms,    192, 

193 

Brown,  C.  Armitage,  406  « 

Brown,  John,  obtains  a  writ  of  dis- 
traint against  .Sliakespeare's  father, 
12 

Browne,  William,  love-sonnets  by, 
439  and  n  2 

Buc,  Sir  George,  245 

Buckingham,  John  Sheffield,  first 
Duke  of,  231,  381 

Bucknill,  John  Charles,  on  the  poet's 
medical  knowledge,  364 

Burbage,  Cuthbert,  37,  200 

Burbage,  James,  owner  of  The 
Theatre  and  keeper  of  a  livery 
stable,  33,  36;  erects  the  Black- 
friars The.itre,  38 

Burbage,  Richard,  erroneously  as- 
sumed to  have  been  a  native  of 
Stratford,  31  « ;  a  lifelong  friend 
of  Shakespeare's,  36;   demolishes 


INDEX 


451 


BURGERSDIJK 

The  Theatre  and  builds  the  Globe 
Theatre,  37,  200;  performs,  with 
Shakespeare  and  Kemp,  before 
Queen  Elizabeth  at  Greenwich 
Palace,  43 ;  his  impersonation  of 
the  King  in  Richard  III,  63 ; 
litigation  of  his  heirs  respecting 
the  Globe  and  the  Blackfriars 
theatres,  200;  his  income,  203, 
219 ;  creates  the  title-part  in  Ham- 
let, 222,  231 ;  his  reputation  made 
in  leading  parts  of  the  poet's  trage- 
dies, 264,  265 ;  anecdote  of  the 
poet  and,  265 ;  the  poet's  bequest 
to,  276 

Burgersdijk,  Dr.  L.  A.  J.,  translation 
in  Dutch  by,  352 

Burghley,  Lord,  375,  376,  378 

Burton,  Francis,  bookseller,  399  n  2, 
400 

Butter,  Nathaniel,  180,  241 

'C.,  E.,'  sonnet  by,  resemblance  in 
Shakespeare's  treatment  of  the 
ravages  of  lust  with  this  subject  in, 
153  n  I ;  his  collection  of  sonnets, 
'  Emaricdulfe,'  436 

Ca'iban,  the  character  of,  253,  257, 
258,  and  tiotes 

Cambridge,  Hatnlct  acted  at,  224 

Cambridge  edition  of  Shakespeare, 

324 

Camden,  William,  191 

Campbell,  Lord,  on  the  poet's  legal 
acquirements,  364 

Campion,  Thomas,  on  Barnes's 
verse,  133 ;  his  sonnet  to  Lord 
Walden,  140;  sonnets  in  Harleian 
MS.,  437  and  w  3 

Capell,  Edward,  reprint  of  Edward- 
Ill  in  his  'Prolusions,'  71,  224; 
his  edition  of  Shakespeare,  319; 
his  works  on  the  poet,  320 

Cardenio,  the  lost  play  of,  258,  259 

Carter,  Rev.  Thomas,  on  the  alleged 
Puritan  sympathies  of  Shake- 
speare's father,  10  « 

Casfeliones  y  Montisis  Lope  de 
Vega's,  55  «  I 

Castille,  Constable  of,  entertainments 
in  his   honour  at  Whitehall,  233, 

234 
Castle,    William,    parish     clerk     of 
Stratford,  34 


Catherine  II  (of  Russia),  adaptation 
of  the  Merry  Wives  and  King 
Johti  by,  352,  353 

Cawood,  Gabriel,  publisher  of  '  Mary 
Magdalene's  Funeral  Tears,'  88  n 

Cecil,  Sir  Robert,  an  allusion  to  the 
Earl  of  Southampton  by,  143  ;  his 
relations  with  Southampton,  379, 
381,  382 

'  Centurie  of  Spiritual  Sonnets,  A,' 
Barnes's,  132 

Cervantes,  his  'Don  Quixote'  the 
foundation  of  lost  play  of  Car- 
dc?iio,  258  ;  death  of,  272  «  i 

Chamberlain,  the  Lord,  his  company 
of  players.  See  Hunsdon,  first 
Lord  and  second  Lord 

Chamberlain,  John,  149,  261  tt 

Chapman,  George,  plays  on  Biron's 
career  by,  51  n,  395  n  i ;  his  An 
Humorous  Day's  Mirth,  51  « ; 
his  Blind  Beggar  of  Alexandria, 
51  n  ;  his  censure  of  sonnetteering, 
106 ;  the  question  of  his  rivalry 
with  Shakespeare  for  Southamp- 
ton's favour,  134,  135  n,  183 ;  his 
translation  of  the  'Iliad,'  227;  his 
sonnets  to  patrons,  388,  440  n ; 
sonnets  in  praise  of  philosophy, 
441 

Cliarlecote  Park,  probably  the  scene 
of  the  poaching  episode,  27,  28 

Charles  I,  the  poet's  plays  the 
'closet  companions'  of  his  'soli- 
tudes,' 329 ;  his  copy  of  the  Second 
Folio,  312 

Charles  II,  his  copy  of  the  Second 
Folio,  312 

Chateaubriand,  349 

Chaucer,  the  storv  of  '  Lucrece  '  in 
his  '  Legend  of  Good  Women,'  76 ; 
hints  in  his  '  Knight's  Tale,'  for 
Midsummer  Aighfs  Dream,  162 ; 
the  plot  of  Troilus  and  Cressida 
taken  from  his  'Troilus  and  Cres- 
seid,'  227;  plot  of  The  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen  drawn  from  his  '  Knight's 
Tale'  of  Palamon  and  Arcite,  260 

Chenier,  Marie  Joseph,  sides  with 
Voltaire  in  the  Shakespearean  con- 
troversy, 349 

Chester,  Robert,  his  '  Love's  Mar- 
tyr,' 183,  184  n 

Chettle,   Henry,   the    publisher,   his 


452 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


CHETWYNDE 

description  of  Shakespeare  as  an 
actor,  43,  48  n;  his  apology  for 
Greene's  attack  on  Shakespeare, 
58,  225,  277;  appeals  to  Shake- 
speare to  write  an  elegy  on  Queen 
Elizabeth,  230 

Chetwynde,  Peter,  publisher,  312 

Chisvvell,  \<.,  313 

'Chloris,'  title  of  William  Smith's 
collection  of  sonnets,  437  and  n  4 

Chronology  of  Shakespeare's  plays  : 
48-57,  59,  63-72,  161  seq.,  207  seq., 
235  ^eq.,  248  seq. 

Churchyard,  Thomas,  his  Fatttas- 
ticall  Monarcho's  Epitaph,  51  « ; 
calls   Barnes  'Petrarch's  scholar,' 

133 

Cibber,  Colley,  335 

Cibber,  Mrs.,  330 

Cibber,  Theophilus,  the  reputed  com- 
piler of  '  Lives  of  the  Poets,'  32  and 

n  3.  33 

Cinthio,  the  '  Hecatommithi '  of, 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to,  14, 
53,  236;  his  tragedy,  Epitia,  237 

Clark,  Mr.  W.  G.",  325 

Clement,  Nicolas,  criticism  of  the 
poet  by,  347,  348 

Cleopatra :  the  poet's  allusion  to  her 
part  being  played  by  a  boy,  38  «  2  ; 
compared  with  the  '  dark  lady  '  of 
the  sonnets,  123,  124;  her  moral 
worthiessness,  245 

Clive,  Mrs.,  336 

Clopton,  Sir  Hugh,  the  former  owner 
of  New  Place,  193 

Clopton,  Sir  John,  283 

Clytemnestra,  resemblance  between 
Lady  Macbeth  and,  13  /;. 

Cobham,  Henry  Brooke,  eighth 
Lord,  169 

'  Coelia,"  love-sonnets  by  William 
Browne  entitled,  439  and  n  2 

'Coelia,'  title  of  Percy's  collection  of 
sonnets,  435 

'  Coelica,'  title  of  Fulke  Greville's  col- 
lection of  poems,  97  ?t 

Cokain,  Sir  Aston,  lines  on  Sliake- 
speare  and  Wincot  ale  by,  166 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  on  the  style  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  245 ;  The 
Two  Noble  Kinsinen,  259 ;  repre- 
sentative of  the  pesthetic  school, 
333 ;   on  Edmund  Kean,  338,  365 


CONTENTION 

Collier,  John  Payne,  includes  Mu- 
cedorus  in  his  edition  of  Shake- 
speare, 72 ;  his  reprint  of  Drayton's 
sonnets,  no  n;  his  forgeries  in 
the  '  Perkins  Folio,'  312  and  n  2, 
317  «  2,  324,  333;  his  other  forg- 
eries (Appendix  1.),  362,  367-9 

Collins,  Mr.  Churton,  317  n  i 

Collins,  Francis,  Shakespeare's  solic- 
itor, 271,  273 

Collins,  Rev.  John,  321 

Colte,  Sir  Henry,  410  7f 

Combe,  John,  bequest  left  to  the  poet 
by,  269 ;  lines  written  upon  liis 
system  of  money-lending,  269  « 

Combe,  Thomas,  legacy  of  the  poet 
to,  276 

Combe,  William,  his  attempt  to  en- 
close common  land  at  Stratford, 
269 

Cotnedy  of  Errors  :  the  plot  drawn 
from  Plautus,  16,  54 ;  date  of  pub- 
lication, 53;  allusion  to  the  civil 
war  in  France,  53;  possibly  founded 
on  T/ie  Historie  of  Error,  54 ; 
performed  in  the  hall  of  Gray's 
Inn  1594,  70;  a  second  perform- 
ance in  the  hall  of  Gray's  Inn  in 
1895,  70  ;/.  For  editions  see  Sec- 
tion xix.  (Bibliography),  301-25 

'  Complainte  of  Rosamond,'  Daniel's, 
parallelisms  in  Romeo  and  Juliet 
with,  56;  its  topic  and  metre  re- 
flected in  '  Lucrece,'  76,  ']^  and  n  i, 

431 

Concordances  to  Shakespeare,  364 
and  n 

Condell,  Henry,  actor  and  a  life- 
long friend  of  Shakespeare's,  36, 
202,  203,  264 ;  the  poet's  bequest 
to  him,  276;  signs  dedication  of 
First  Folio,  303,  306 

Confess io  Amantis,  Gower's,  244 

Conspiracte  of  Duke  Biron,  The, 
51  « 

Constable,  Henry,  piratical  publi- 
cation of  the  sonnets  of,  88  // ;  fol- 
low^ed  Desportes  in  naming  his 
collection  of  sonnets  '  Diana,'  104, 
431 ;  inclusion  of  sonnets  by  other 
authors  in  '  Diana,'  431, 432  ;  dedi- 
catory sonnets,  440 ;  religious  son- 
nets, 440 

Contention   betwixt  the  two  famous 


INDEX 


453 


CONTR' 

houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster, 
first  part  of  the,  59 

'Contr'  Amours,'  Jodelle's,  parody 
of  the  vituperative  sonnet  in,  122 
and  n 

Cooke,  Sir  Anthony,  436 

Cooke,  George  Frederick,  actor,  338 

Coral,  comparison  of  lips  with,  118 
anii  tt  2 

Coriohinus :  date  of  first  publica- 
tion, 246;  derived  from  North's 
'Plutarch,'  246;  literal  reproduc- 
tion of  the  text  of  Plutarch,  246 
and  n  ;  originality  of  the  humorous 
scenes,  246 ;  date  of  composition, 

246,  247 ;    general   characteristics, 

247.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

'  Coronet  for  his  mistress  Philosophy, 

A,'  by  Chapman,  106 
Coryat,   '  Odcombian   Banquet"   by, 

395 

Cotes,  Thomas,  printer,  312 

Cotswolds,  the,  Shakespeare's  allu- 
sion to,  168 

Court,  the,  Shakespeare's  relations 
with,  81,  83,  230,  232-4,  cf.  251  u, 
254  «.  255  ".  264 

Cowden-Clarke,  Mrs.,  364 

Cowley,  actor,  208 

'Crabbed  age  and  youth,'  <S:c.,  182  « 

Craig,  Mr.  \V.  J.,  325 

Creede,  Thomas,  draft  of  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Wbidsor  printed  by,  172  : 
draft  of  Henry  Sprinted  by,  173; 
fraudulently  assigns  plays  to  Shake- 
speare, 179,  180 

'Cromwell,  History  of  Thomas, 
Lord,'  313 

'Cryptogram,  The  Great,'  372 

Cupid,  Shakespeare's  addresses  to, 
compared  with  the  invocations  of 
Sidney,  Drayton,  Lyly,  and  others, 
97  « 

Curtain  Theatre,  Moorfields,  one  of 
the  only  two  theatres  existing  in 
London  at  the  period  of  Shake- 
speare's arrival,  32,  36;  the  scene 
of  some  of  the  poet's  performances, 
37 ;  closed  at  the  period  of  the 
Civil  War,  37,  233  n  i 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  342 

Cymbelhie  :  adapted  from  Holinshed 
and   the   'Decameron,'    249;    the 


DAVENANT 

Story  told  in '  Westward  for  Smelts,' 
249;  introduction  of  Calvinistic 
terms,  250  and  n ;  Imogen,  250; 
resemblance  to  As  You  Like  It, 
250 ;  Dr.  Forman's  note  on  its  per- 
formance, 250.  For  editions  see 
Section   xix.   (Bibliography),  301- 

25 

'  Cynthia,'  Barnfield's,  adulation  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  in,  137  «,  435 

'Cynthia,'  Ralegh's,  extravagant 
apostrophe  to  Queen  Elizabeth 
in,  137  ti 

Cynthia's  Revets,  performed  at  Black- 
friars  Theatre,  215 

Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  plagiarisms  of 
Shakespeare  by,  347 


'  Daiphantus,'  allusion  to  the  poet 
in  Scoloker's,  277 

Daniel,  Samuel,  parallelisms  in 
Romeo  and  yiiliet  with  his  '  Com- 
plainte  of  Rosamond,'  56,  61 ; 
the  topic  and  metre  of  the  '  Coni- 
plainte  of  Rosamond  '  reflected  in 
'  Lucrece,'  76,  jj  and  n  1 ;  feigning 
old  age,  86  n ;  his  sonnet  (xlix.) 
on  Sleep,  loi ;  admits  plagiarism 
of  Petrarch  in  his  '  Delia,'  loi  n  4 ; 
followed  Maurice  Seve  in  naming 
his  collection  of  sonnets,  104,  430; 
claims  immortality  for  his  son- 
nets, 115;  his  prefatory  sonnet  in 
'Delia,'  130,  429;  celebrates  in 
verse  Southampton's  release  from 
prison,  149,  388  ;  his  indebtedness 
to  Desportes,  430 ;  to  De  Baif  and 
Pierre  de  Brach,  431 ;  popularity 
of  his  sonnets,  431 

Danish,  translations  of  Shakespeare 

in.  354 
Danter,   John,  prints  surreptitiously 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  56  ;     Titus  An- 

dronicus  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 

by,  66 
Daurat-Dinemandy,  Jean,  one  of '  La 

Pleiade,'  443 
D'Avenant,  John,  keeps  the  Crown 

Inn,  Oxford,  265 
D'Avenant,  Sir  William,  relates  the 

story     of     Shakespeare     holding 

horses     outside    playhouses,     33 ; 

hands  down  the   story   of   South- 


454 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


ampton's  gift  to  Shakespeare,  126, 
374;  the  story  of  Shakespere's 
paternity  of,  265,  328. 

Davies,  Archdeacon,  vicar  of  Saper- 
ton,  his  testimony  to  Shakespeare's 
'  unluckiness  '  in  poaching,  27  ;  his 
allusion  to  the  caricature  of  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  in  'Justice  Clodpate' 
(Justice  Shallow),  29,  362 

Davies,  John,  of  Hereford,  44,  149, 
388,  439  ;  sonnets  to  patrons,  440  n 

Davies,  Sir  John :  his  '  gulling  son- 
nets,' 106,  107  and  11  I,  128  n, 
435,  436;  his  apostrophe  to  Queen 
Elizaoeth,  137  «,  273 

Davison,  Francis,  his  translation  of 
Petrarch's  sonnet,  loi  n  4  ;  dedica- 
tion of  his  '  Poetical  Rhapsody '  to 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  413 

De  Chatelain,  Chevalier,  rendering 
of  Hamlet  by,  351 

Death-mask,  the  Kesselstadt,  296  and 
and  n  i 

'  Decameron,'  the,  indebtedness  of 
Shakespeare  to,  163,  249,  251  and 
n  2 

'  Declaration  of  Popish  Impostures,' 
Harsnet's,  hints  for  •  King  Lear 
taken  from,  241 

Dedications,  392-400 

'  Dedicatory '  sonnets,  of  Shake- 
speare, 125  seq. ;  of  other  Eliza- 
bethan poets,  138  ;/  2,  140,  141 

Defence  of  Cony-  Catching,  47  n 

Dekker,  Thomas,  48  «;  the  quar- 
rel with  Ben  Jonson,  214-20,  228  n, 
225 ;  his  account  of  King  James's 
entry  into  London,  232 ;  his  song 
'  Oh,  sweet  content,'  an  eclio  of 
Barnes's  '  Ah,  sweet  Content,'  433 
n  I 

'  Delia,'  title  of  Daniel's  collection 
of  sonnets,  104,  118  «  2,  130, 
430,  434.  See  also  under  Daniel, 
Samuel 

'  Delie,'  sonnets  by  Seve  entitled,  442 

Delius,  Nikolaus,  edition  of  Shake- 
speare by,  324;  studies  of  the 
text  and   metre   of   the    poet   by, 

3+5.      ..  ,        ,  .  ,     ^ 

Dennis,   John,    his    account   of    the 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  171, 172; 

his  tribute  to  the  poet,  332 
Derby,  Ferdinando  Stanley,  Earl  of, 


the  Earl  of  Leicester's  company  of 
actors  passes  to  his  patronage,  35 ; 
on  his  death  his  place  as  patron  is 
filled  successively  by  the  two  Lord 
Hunsdons,  35 ;  performances  by 
the  company,  56,  59,  66,  73 ;  Spen- 
ser's bestowal  of  the  title  of '  Amyn- 
tas '  on,  385  n  2 

Derby,  William  Stanley,  Earl  of, 
161 

Desmond,  Earl  of,  Ben  Jonson's 
apostrophe  to  the,  140 

Desportes,  Philippe,  his  sonnet  on 
Sleep,  loi  and  Appendix  IX.; 
plagiarised  by  Drayton  and  others, 
103  and  n  3,  430  seq. ;  plagiarised 
indirectly  by  Shakespeare,  no,  in; 
his  claim  for  the  immortality  of 
verse,  114  and  71  i;  Daniel's  in- 
debtedness to,  430,  431,  443,  444, 

445  « 
Deutsche  Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 

365 

Devrient  family,  the  stage  represen- 
tation of  Shakespeare  by,  346 

Diana,  George  de  Montemayor's  the 
source  of  the  story  of  Tiuo  Gentle- 
men  of   Verona,   53;    translations 

of,  53  ' 

'  Diana '  the  title  of  Constable's  col- 
lection of  sonnets,  88  ti,  96  n,  104 

Diderot,  opposition  to  Voltaire's 
strictures  by,  348 

'  Diella,'  sonnets  by  '  R.  L.'  [Richard 
Linche],  437 

Digges,  Leonard,  on  the  superior 
popularity  of  Julius  Ccesar  to 
Jonson's  Catiline,  220  n;  com- 
mendatory verses  on  the  poet, 
276  ti  I ;  on  the  poet's  popularity, 
300,  306,  329 

'  Don  Quixote,'  the  lost  play  Car- 
denio  probably  drawn  from,  258 

Doncaster,  occurrence  of  the  name 
of  Shakespeare  at,  i 

Donne,  Dr.  John,  his  poetic  ad- 
dresses to  the  Countess  of  Bed- 
ford, 138  71  2;  expression  of 
'  love '  in  his  '  Verse  Letters,' 
141 ;  his  anecdote  about  Shake- 
speare and  Jonson,  177 

Donnelly,  Mr.  Ignatius,  372 

Dorell,  Hadrian,  writer  ot  the  pref- 
ace to  the  story  of  '  Avisa,'  157 


INDEX 


455 


DOUBLE 

Double  Falsehood,  or  the  Distrest 
Lovers,  259  and  n  i 

Douce,  Francis,  364 

Dowdjil,  John,  362 

Dovvdeii,  Professor,  333, 364, 365, 416  « 

Drake,  Nathan,  363 

Drayton,  Michael,  61 ;  feigning  old 
age  in  his  sonnets,  86  71 ;  his  in- 
vocations to  Cupid,  97  n ;  pla- 
giarisms in  his  sonnets,  103  and 
«  2,  434;  follows  Claude  de  Fon- 
toux  in  naming  his  heroine  '  Idea,' 
104,  105  n  I ;  his  admission  of 
insincerity  in  his  sonnets,  105 ; 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to  his 
sonnets,  won  ;  claims  immortality 
for  his  sonnets,  115;  use  of  the 
word  '  love,'  127  «  ;  title  of  '  Hymn  ' 
given  to  some  of  his  poems,  135  11 ; 
identified  by  some  as  the  '  rival 
poet,'  135;  the  adulation  in  his 
sonnets,  138  n  2;  Shakespeare's 
Sonnet  cxliv.  adapted  from,  153  n 
2;  entertained  by  Shakespeare  at 
New  Place,  Stratford,  271,  427  n  2; 
greetings  to  his  patrons  in  his 
works,  398 

Droeshout,  Martin,  engraver  of  the 
portrait  in  the  First  Folio,  287-8; 
his  uncle  of  the  same  name,  a 
painter,  290 

Droitwich,  native  place  of  John 
Heming,  one  of  Shakespeare's 
actor  friends,  31  « 

Drummond,  William  of  Hawthorn- 
den,  his  translation  of  Petrarch's 
sonnets,  104^4,  in  n\  Italian  ori- 
gin of  his  love-sonnets,  104  and  u  ; 
translation  of  Petrarch's  Sonnet 
xlii.,  Ill  n;  translation  of  a  vitu- 
perative sonnet  from  Marino, 
122  71  I ;  translation  of  a  sonnet 
by  Tasso,  152  ;/ ;  self-reproach- 
ful sonnets  by,  152  w.  See  also 
(Appendix)  439  and  n  i 

Dryden,  on  Shakespeare,  330;  pre- 
sented with  a  copy  of  the  Chandos 
portrait,  330,  361 

Ducis,  Jean-Frangois,  adaptations 
of  the  poet  for  the  French  stage 
by,  349.  352 

Dugdale,  Gilbert,  231  « 

Dulwich,  manor  of,  purchased  by 
Edward  Alleyn,  204,  233  «  i 


ELIZABETH 

Dumain,    Lord,   in   Love's  Labour's 

Lost,  ^1  71 

Dumas,    Alexandre,    adaptation    of 

Ha/nlet  by,  351 
Duport,     Paul,     repeats     Voltaire's 

censure,  350 
Dyce,    Alexander,  259  «  i ;    on  The 

Two    Noble    Ki7is77ien,    259 ;     his 

edition  of  Shakespeare,  323 


ECCLESIASTES,    Book    of,     poetical 

versions  of,  441  and  n  i 
Eden,     translation     of     Magellan's 

'  Voyage   to  the  South  Pole '   by, 

253 

Edgar,  Eleazar,  publisher,  390 

Editions  of  Shakespeare's  works. 
See  under  Quarto  and  Folio 

Editors  of  Shakespeare,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  313-22;  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  323-5; 
variorum,  322,  323 

Education  of  Shakespeare :  the 
poet's  masters  at  Stratford  Gram- 
mar School,  13;  his  instruction 
mainly  confined  to  the  Latin  lan- 
guage and  literature,  13  ;  evidences 
of  the  poet's  knowledge  of  Latin 
and  French,  15,  16;  probable  date 
of  Shakespeare's  removal  from 
school,  18 

Edward  II,  Marlowe's,  Richard  II 
suggested  by,  64 

Edward  III,  a  play  of  uncertain 
authorship,  sometimes  assigned  to 
Shakespeare,  71 ;  quotation  from 
one  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  72, 
89,  and  71  2 

Eiiwardes,  Richard,  author  of  the 
lost  play  Fahcmo/!  and  Arcyte,  260 

Edwards,  Thomas,  '  Canons  of  Criti- 
cism '  of,  319 

Eld,  George,  printer  of  the  pirated 
sonnets,  90,  180,  399  n  2,  401,  402 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  marriage  of, 
performance  of  The  Te/zipest,  &c., 
at,  254,  238,  263 

Elizabeth,  Queen  :  her  visit  to  Kenil- 
worth,  17  ;  Shakespeare  and  other 
actors  play  before  her  at  Green- 
wich Palace,  43,  70,  81 ;  her 
enthusiasm  for  Falstaff,  82;  ex- 
travagant   compliments    to,    137; 


456 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


ELIZABETHAN 

called  '  Cynthia '  by  the  poets,  148  ; 
elegies  on,  147,  148;  compliment 
to,  in  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
161 ;  her  objections  to  Richard  II, 
175;  death,  230;  her  imprison- 
ment of  Southampton,  380 

Elizabethan  Stage  Society,  70  n,  210 
n  2 

Elton,  Q.C.,  Mr.  Charles,  274  n 

Elze,  Friedrich  Karl,  '  Life  of  Shake- 
speare '  by,  364;  studies  of  Shake- 
speare by,  345 

'  EmaricduUe,'    sonnets    by   '  E.  C.,' 

153  «  I.  436 

Endymion,  Lyly's,  infiuence  in  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  of,  62 

Error,  Historie  of.  See  Comedy  of 
Errors 

Eschenburg,  Johann  Joachim,  343 

Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  second 
Earl  of,  company  of  actors  under 
the  patronage  of,  33 ;  noticed  in 
Henry  V,  \jii, ;  trial  and  execution, 
175,  176;  his  relations  with  the 
Earl  of  Southampton,  376,  377, 
380,  383 

Eton,  debate  about  Shakespeare  at, 
382  n 

Euphues,  Lyly's,  Polonius's  advice  to 
Laertes  borrowed  from,  62  n 

Euripides,  Andromache  of,  13  n 

Evans,  Sir  Hugh,  Latin  phrases 
quoted  by,  15;  Marlowe's  'Come 
live  with  me  and  be  my  love," 
quoted  by,  65 

Evelyn,  John,  329  n  2 

Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  Shake- 
speare takes  a  part  in  the  per- 
formance of,  44,  176;  prohibition 
on  its  publication,  208 


Fa  IRE  EM,  sometimes  assigned  to 
Shakespeare,  72 

Falstaff,  Queen  Elizabeth's  enthusi- 
asm for,  82.  171 ;  named  originally 
in  Henry  J  I'  'Sir  John  Oldcastle,' 
169;  the  attraction  of,  170;  his 
last  moments,  173  ;  letter  from  the 
Countess  of  Southampton  on,  383 
and  n  I 

Farmer,  Dr.  Richard,  on  Shake- 
speare's education,  14,  15,  363 

Farmer,  Mr.  John  S.,  386  »  i 


'  Farmer  MS.,  the  Dr.,'  107  n  i 

Fastolf,  Sir  John,  170 

Faucit,  Helen,  339.    See  also  Martin, 

Lady  » 

Felix  and  Ph'domena,  history  of,  53 
'  Fidessa,'  Griffin's,  182  n,  431,  437 
Field,  Henry,  father  of  the  London 

printer,  186 
Field,    Richard,   native   of  Stratford 

and  a  friend  of  Shakespeare,  32 ; 

apprenticed  to  the  London  printer, 

Thomas  Vautrollier,  32  ;  publishes 

'  Venus  and  Adonis,'  74,  396,  and 

'  Lucrece,'  76,  396 
Finnish,  translations  of  Shakespeare 

in.  354 

Fiorentino,  Ser  Giovanni,  Shake- 
speare's indebtedness  to  his  '  II 
Pecorone,'  14,  66,  172 

Fisher,  Mr.  Clement,  166 

Fitton,.  Mary,  and  the  '  dark  lady," 
123  71,  406  ;/,  415  n 

Fleay,  Mr.  V.  G.,  49  n,  no  n,  363 

Fletcher,  Giles,  on  the  ravages  of 
Time,  jj  n  2,;  his  'imitation'  of 
other  poets,  103  ;  his  '  Licia,"  433 

Fletcher,  John,  181, 184,  258,  259  ;  col- 
laborates with  Shakespeare  in  The 
Tioo  Noble  Kinsmen  and  Henry 
VIII,  259,  262,  263 

Fletcher,  Lawrence,  actor,  41  and  n 
I,  231 

Florio,  John,  and  Holofernes,  51  n, 
84  n  ;  the  sonnet  prefixed  to  his 
'  Second  Frutes,'  84  and  n  ;  known 
to  Shakespeare  as  Southampton's 
protege,  84  n ;  his  translation  of 
Montaigne's  'Essays,'  84  n,  253; 
his  '  Worlde  of  Wordes,'  84  ;/,  387  ; 
his  praise  of  Southampton,  131 
(and  Appendix  IV.)  ;  Southamp- 
ton's Italian  tutor,  376,  384 

Folio,  the  First,  1623 :  the  syndicate 
for  its  production,  303,  304;  its 
contents,  305,  306 ;  prefatory  mat- 
ter, 306,  307;  value  of  the  text, 
307  ;  order  of  the  plays,  307,  308  ; 
the  typography,  308  ;  unique  copies, 
308-10  ;  the  Sheldon  copy,  309  and 
n,  310;  estimated  number  of  ex- 
tant copies,  311 ;  reprints,  311 ;  the 
'  Daniel '  copy,  311 

Folio,  the  Second,  312 

Folio,  the  Third,  312,  313 


INDEX 


457 


Folio,  the  Fourth,  313 

Ford,  John, 97  n 

Forgeries,  Shakespearean  (Appendix 

I.),  312  «  2,  365-9 
Forman,  Dr.  Simon,  239,  250 
Forrest,  Edwin,  American  actor,  342 
Fortune  Theatre,  212,  233  n  i 
France,     Shakespeare     in,     347-50; 
stage  representation  of  the  poet  in, 
350,  351 ;  the  sonnet  in  (Appendix 

X.),  442-5 
Fraunce,  Abraham,  385  n  2 
Freiligrath,  Ferdinand  von,  German 

translation  of  Shakespeare  by,  344 
French,  the  poet's  acquaintance  with, 

14.  IS-  ' 
French,  George  Russell,  363 
'Freyndon'  (or  Frittenden),  i 
Friendship,  sonnets  of,  Shakespeare's, 

136,  138-47 

Frittenden,  Kent.     See  Freyndon 

Fulbroke  Park,  28 

Fuller,  Thomas,  allusion  in  his 
'Worthies'  to  Sir  John  Fastolf, 
170  ;  to  the  '  wit  combats  '  between 
Shakespeare  and  Jonson,  178; 
biographical  notice  of  the  poet, 
361 

Fulman,  Rev.  W.,  362 

Furness,  Mr.  H.  H.,  his  '  New  Vario- 
rum '  edition  of  Shakespeare,  323, 

341 
Furness,  Mrs.  H.  H.,  364 
Furnivall,  Dr.  F.  J.,  49  «,  302  n,  325, 

334.  364 

Gale,  Dunstan,  397 

Ganymede,  Barnfield's  sonnets  to, 
435  anrt  n  4 

Garnett,  Henry,  the  Jesuit,  239 

Garrick,  David,  315,  334,  335-7 

Gascoigne,  George,  his  definition  of 
a  sonnet,  95  n  2;  his  'Supposes,' 
164 

Gastrell.  Rev.  Francis,  buys  New 
Place  in  1752,  283 

Gates,  Sir  Thomas,  252 

Germany,  Shakespearean  representa- 
tions in,  340,  346;  translations  of 
the  poet's  works  and  criticisms 
in,  342-6;  Shakespeare  Society  in, 
346 

Gervinus,  'Commentaries'  by,  49  n, 
346 


'  Gesta  Romanorum,'  67 

Ghost  in  Hamlet,  the,  played  by 
Shakespeare,  44 

Gilchrist,  Octavius,  363 

Gildon,  Charles,  on  the  I[ferry  Wives 
of  IVhiJsor,  172;  on  the  supremacy 
of  Shakespeare  as  a  poet,  328  n 

'  Globe '     edition    of    Shakespeare, 

325 

Globe  Theatre  :  built  in  1599,  37,  196 ; 
described  by  Shakespeare,  37,  cf. 
173  ;  profits  shared  by  Shakespeare, 
37,  196;  revival  of  Richard  II  at, 
175 ;  litigation  of  Burbage's  heirs, 
200;  prices  of  admission,  201 ;  an- 
nual receipts,  201 ;  performance  of 
A  Wi7iters  Tale,  251 ;  its  destruc- 
tion by  fire,  260,  261  n\  the  new 
building,  260;  Shakespeare's  dis- 
posal of  liis  shares,  264 

Goethe,  on  Shakespeare,  345 

Goldipg,  Arthur,  his  English  version 
of  the  '  Metamorphoses,'  15,  16, 
116  71,  162,  253 

Gollancz,  Mr.  Israel,  222  n,  325 

Googe,  Barnabe,  427  n  2 

Gosson,  Stephen,  67 

Gottsched,  J.  C,  denunciation  of 
Shakespeare  by,  343 

Gounod,  opera  of  Romeo  and  Juliet 

by.  351 

Gower,  John,  in  Pericles,  244;  his 
'Confessio  Amantis,'  244 

Gower,  Lord  Ronald,  297 

Grammaticus,  Saxo,  222 

Grave,  Shakespeare's,  and  the  in- 
scription upon  it,  272 

Gray's  Inn  Hall,  perforriiance  of  The 
Comedy  of  Errors  in,  70  and  n 

Greek,  Siiakespeare's  knowledge  of, 
13  and  //,  16 

Green,  C.  F.,  364 

Greene,  Robert,  47  v\  his  attack  on 
Shakes])(>are,  57 ;  and  the  original 
draft  of  ^t'«/-j  VI,  bo;  his  influence 
on  Shakespeare,  6r,  73  ;  describes 
a  meeting  with  a  player,  198  ;  A 
Winters  Tale  founded  on  his 
Patidosto,  251 ;  dedicatory  greet- 
ings in  his  works,  398 

Greene,  Thomas,  actor  at  the  Red 
Bull  Theatre,  31  n 

Greene,  Thomas  {'alias  Shake- 
speare'), a  tenant  of  New  Place, 


458 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


GREENWICH 

and  Shakespeare's  legal  adviser, 
195,  206,  269,  270  a.Tid  n 

Greenwich  Palace,  43,  44  n  i,  70,  81, 
82 

Greet,  hamlet  in  Gloucestershire, 
identical  with  '  Greece '  in  the 
Tanting  of  The  Slii-ew,  167 

Grendon,  near  Oxford,  31 

Greville,  Sir  Ftilke,  88  //,  97  n\  his 
'  Sonnets,'  i&c,  438,  439 

Griffin,  Bartholomew,  182  «;  pla- 
giarises Daniel,  431,  437 

Griggs,  Mr.   W.,  302  n 

Grimm,  Baron,  349,  350  «  i 

'  Groats-worth  of  Wit,'  Greene's 
pamphlet,  57 

Guizot,  Francois,  350 

'  Gulling  sonnets,'  Sir  John  Davies's, 
106,  107,  435,  436;  Shakespeare's 
Sonnet  xxvi.  parodied  in,  128  « 


'H.,  Mr.  W.,'  'patron*  of  Tliorpe's 
pirated  issue  of  the  Sonnets,  92; 
identified  with  William  Hall,  92, 
402,  403,  406  seq. :  his  publication 
of  Southwell's  '  A  Foure-fold  Medi- 
tation,' 92;  erroneously  assumed 
to  indicate  the  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
93,  94,  and  W'illiam  Hughes,  93  ?i\ 
his  true  relations  with  Thomas 
Thorpe  (Appendix  v.),  390-405 

Hacket,  Marian  and  Cicely,  in  the 
Taming  of  The  Shrew,  164-6 

Hair,  women's,  described  as  '  wires," 
118  and  n  2 

Hal,  Prince,  169,  173 

Hales,  John  (of  Eton),  on  the  supe- 
riority of  Shakespeare,  328  and  n 

Hall,  Elizabeth,  the  poet's  grand- 
daughter, 192,  266,  275 ;  her  first 
marriage  to  Thomas  Nash,  and 
her  second  marriage  to  John 
Barnard  (or  Bernard),  282;  her 
death  and  will,  282,  283 

Hall,  Dr.  John,  the  poet's  son-in- 
law,  266,  268,  273,  281 

Hall,  Mrs.  Susannah,  the  poet's  elder 
daughter,  192,  205,  266,  267 ;  in- 
herits the  chief  part  of  the  poet's 
estate,  275,  281 ;  her  death  and 
tomb,  281 

Hall,  William,  (i)  on  the  poet's 
grave,  272  and  n  2,  362 


Hall,  William,  (2).  See  '  H.,  Mr.  W.' 
Halliwell-Phillipps,  James  Orchard, 
the  collection  of,  267  n ;  his  edition 
of  Shakespeare,  312,  325;    his  la- 
bours on  Shakespeare's  biography, 

333.  363.  364 

Hamlet,  13  n,  62  n ;  allusion  to  boy- 
actors,  213  n  2,  214  and  n  i,  216; 
date  of  production,  221 ;  previous 
popularity  of  the  story,  221  and  n ; 
sources  drawn  upon  by  the  poet, 
221-2;  Burbage  in  the  title-part, 
222 ;  the  problem  of  its  publica- 
tion, 222-4 ;  the  three  versions, 
222-4 ;  Theobald's  emendations, 
224 ;  its  world-wide  popularity, 
224.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

Hanmer,  Sir  Thomas,  224;  his  edi- 
tion of  Shakespeare,  318 

Harington,  Sir  John,  translates 
Ariosto,  208 

Harington,  Lucy,  her  marriage  to 
the  third  Earl  of  Bedford,  161 

Harness,  William,  324 

Harrison,  John,  publisher  of  '  Lu- 
crece,'  76 

Harsnet,  '  Declaration  of  Popish  Im- 
postures '  by,  241 

Hart  family,  the,  and  the  poet's 
reputed  birthplace,  8 

Hart,  Joan,  Shakespeare's  sister,  8  ; 
her  three  sons,  276,  283 

Hart,  John,  283 

Hart,  Joseph  C.,  371 

Harvey,  Gabriel,  loi ;  justifies  the 
imitation  of  Petrarch,  loi  «  4;  his 
parody  of  sonnetteering,  106,  121 
and  n  ;  his  advice  to  Barnes,  133  ; 
his  '  Four  Letters  and  certain 
Sonnets,'  440 

Hathaway,  Anne.  See  Shakespeare, 
Anne 

Hathaway,  Catherine,  sister  of  Anne 
Hathaway,  19 

Hathaway,  Joan,  mother  of  Anne 
Hatha\^ay,  19 

Hathaway,  Richard,  marriage  of  his 
daughter  Anne  (or  Agnes)  to  the 
poet,  18,  19-22;  his  will,  19 

Haughton,  William,  48  ;/,  418 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  371 

Hazlitt,  William,  and  his  Sh.ike- 
spearean  criticism,  333,  364,  365 


INDEX 


459 


Healey,  John,  400,  403  n  2,  408,  409 

'  Hecatommithi,'  Cinthio's,  Shake- 
speare's indebtedness  to,  14,  53, 
236 

Heine,  studies  of  Shakespeare's 
heroines  of,  345 

Helena,  in  A/l's  Well  that  Ends  Well, 
163 

Heming,  John  (actor-friend  of  Shake- 
speare's), 31  n,  36,  202,  203,  264; 
the  poet's  bequest  to,  276 ;  signs 
dedication  of  First  Folio,  303,306 

Henderson,  John,  actor,  337 

Heneage,  Sir  Thomas,  375  n  3 

Henley-in-Arden,  4 

Henrietta  Maria,  Queen,  at  Strat- 
ford, 281 

Henry  IV  (parts  i.  and  ii.),  62  n\ 
sources  of,  167 ;  Justice  Shallow, 
29,  168 ;  references  to  persons  and 
districts  familiar  to  the  poet,  167, 
168 ;  the  characters,  16S-70.  For 
edition  see  Section  xix.  (Bibliogra- 
phy), 301-25 

Henry  V,  The  Famous  Victories  of, 
part  of  the  groundwork  of  Henry 
IV  unA  oi  Henry  V,  167,  174 

Henry  V:  French  dialogues  in,  15, 
37;  disdainful  allusion  to  sonnet- 
teering,  108 ;  date  of  production, 
173  ;  issue  of  imperfect  drafts  of  the 
play,  173 ;  the  poet's  final  experi- 
ment in  the  dramatisation  of  Eng- 
lish history,  174 ;  allusions  to  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  175.  For  editions 
see  Section  xix.  (Bibliography), 
301-25 

Henry  VI  (pt.  i.)  :  performed  at  the 
Rose  Theatre  in  1592,  56  ;  Nash's 
remarks  on,  56,  57;  first  publica- 
tion, 58 ;  contains  only  a  slight 
impress  of  the  poet's  style,  59 

Henry  VI  (pt.  ii.),  13  n;  publication 
of  a  first  draft,  59 ;  revision  of  the 
play,  60 ;  the  poet's  coadjutors  in 
the  revision,  60 

Henry  VI  (pt.  iii.)  :  one  of  the  only 
two  plays  of  the  poet's  performed 
by  a  company  other  than  his  own, 
36 ;  performed  in  the  autumn  of 
1592,  57 ;  publication  of  a  first 
draft,  59 ;  performed  by  Lord 
Pembroke's  men,  36,  59 ;  partly 
remodelled,  60;    the  poet's  coad- 


jutors in  the  revision,  60.  For 
editions  see  Section  xix.  (Bibliog- 
raphy), 301-25 

Hen/y  VIII :  174 ;  attributed  to 
Shakespeare  and  Fletcher,  259 ; 
noticed  by  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  261 ; 
date  of  first  publication,  261 ;  the 
portions  that  can  confidently  be 
assigned  to  Shakespeare,  262;  un- 
certain authorship  of  Wolsey's 
farewell  to  Cromwell,  262 ;  the 
theory  of  James  Spedding  as  to, 
263.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

Henryson,  Robert,  227 

Henslowe,  Philip,  eiects  the  Rose 
Theatie,  36,  48  n,  180  n,  225,  260 

'  Heptameron  of  Civil  Discources,' 
Whetstone's,  237 

'Herbert,  Mr.  William,'  his  alleged 
identity  with  '  Mr.  W.  H.'  (Ap- 
pendix VI.),  406-10 

Herder,  Johann  Gottfried,  343 

'  Hero  and  Leander,"  Marlowe's, 
quotation  in  As  You  Like  It  fi-om, 
64 

Herringman,  H.,  313 

Hervey,  Sir  William,  375  n  3 

Hess,  J.  R.,  342 

Heyse,  Paul,  German  translation  ot 
Shakespeare  by,  344 

Heywood,  Thomas,  48  n  ;  two  of  his 
poems  pirated  in  the  '  Passionate 
Pilgrim,'  182,  301,  328 

Hill,  John,  marriage  of  his  widow, 
Agnes  or  Anne,  to  Robert  Arden, 
6 

Holinshed,  '  Chronicles '  of,  mate- 
rials taken  by  Shakespeare  from, 
17.  47.  63,  64,  167,  239,  241,  249, 
364 

Holland,  translations  of  Shakespeare 
in,  352 

Holland,  Hugh,  306 

Holmes,  Nathaniel,  372 

Holmes,  William,  bookseller,  403  n  i 

Holofernes,  15 ;  groundless  assump- 
tion that  he  is  a  caricature  of 
Florio,  51  «,  84  n 

Horace,  his  claim  for  the  immortality 
of  verse,  114  and  n  i,  116  « 

Hotspur,  168,  169 

Howard  of  Effingham,  the  Lord 
Admiral,  Charles,  Lord,  his  com- 


460 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


pany  of  actors,  35,  37  ;  Spenser's 

sonnet  to,  140 
Hudson,  Rev.  H.  N.,  325 
Hughes,    Mis.    Margaret,    the    first 

woman    to    play   lemale   parts   in 

place  ol  bovs,  335 
Hughes.  William,  and  'Mr.  W.  H.,' 

93  « 

Hugo,  Franfois  Victor,  translation 
of  Shakespeare  by,  350 

Hugo,  Victor,  350 

Humorous  Day's  Mirth,  An,  51  n 

Hungary,  translations  and  perform- 
ances of  Shakespeare  in,  353 

Hunsdon  (Lord  Chamberlain), 
George  Carey,  second  Lord,  his 
company  of  players,  35 ;  promo- 
tion of  the  company  to  be  the 
King's  players,  35 

Hunsdon  (Lord  Chamberlain), 
Henry  Carey,  first  Lord,  his  com- 
pany of  players,  35  ;  and  Shake- 
speare, 36 

Hunt,  Thomas,  one  of  the  masters 
of  Stratford  Grammar  School,  13 

Hunter,  Rev.  Joseph,  333,  363,  406 

'  Huon  of  Bordeaux,'  hints  for  the 
story  of  Oberon  from,  162 

'  Hymn,'  use  of  the  word  as  the  title 
of  poems,  133,  134,  135  n 


'Idea,'  title  of  Drayton's  collection 
of  sonnets,  104,  105,  434 

'  Ignoto,"  183 

Immortality  of  verse,  claimed  by 
Shakespeare  for  his  sonnets,  113, 
114,  115  and  n 

Imogen,  the  character  of,  249,  250 

Income,  Shakespeare's,  196-204 

India,  translations  and  representa- 
tions of  Shakespeare  in,  354 

Ingamiati  {Gi'),  its  resemblance  to 
T'iiiclftk  Night,  210 

Ingram,  Dr.,  on  the  "weak  endings' 
in  Shakespeare,  49  n 

Ireland  forgeries,  the  (Appendix  I.), 
366 

Ireland,  Samuel,  28 

Irishman,  the  only  one  in  Shake- 
speare's dramatis  per soncE,  173 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  339 

Italian,  the  poet's  acquaintance  with, 
14-16,  of.  66  /?  3 


JONSON 

Italy,  Shakespeare's  alleged  know- 
ledge of,  43;  translations  and  per- 
formances of  Shakespeare  in,  352  ; 
sonnetteers  of  sixteenth  century  in, 
442  n  2 

Itinerary  of  Shakespeare's  company 
between  1593  and  1614,  40  and  n  x 


Jaggard,  Isaac,  305 

Jaggard,  Williain,  and  '  Passionate 
Pilgrim,'  89,  182,  299,  390,  396; 
and  the  First  Folio,  303,  304 

James  VI  of  Scotland  and  I  of  Eng- 
land, his  favour  to  actors,  41  ?/  i; 
his  appreciation  of  Shakespeare, 
82;  his  accession  to  the  English 
throne,  147-9  i  grants  a  license  to 
the  poet  and  his  company,  230; 
patronage  of  Shakespeare,  232-4; 
performances  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  before,  235,  236,  239,  251  and 
II,  254,  255,  256  // ;  sonnets  to,  440 

James,  Sir  Henry,  311 

Jameson,  Mrs.,  365 

Jamyn,  Amadis,  432,  443,  444,  455  n 

Jansen  or  Janssen,  Gerard,  276 

Jansen,  Cornelius,  the  painter,  294 

yerornmo  and  Hamlet,  221  )i 

Jew  of  Malta,  Marlowe's,  68 

Jem  .  .  .  showne  at  the  Hull,  a  los' 
play,  67 

Jodelle,  Estienne,  resemblances  it 
'  V' enus  and  Adonis'  to  a  poem 
by,  75  n  2;  his  parody  of  the 
vituperative  sonnet,  121,  122  and 
n  (quot.)  ;  one  of  '  La  Pleiade,'  443 

John,  King,  old  play  on,  attributed 
to  the  poet,  181 

John,  King :  Shakespeare's  play  of, 
69,  70.  For  editions  see  Section 
xix.  (Bibliography),  301-25 

Johnson,  Dr.,  33;  his  edition  of 
Shakespeare,  319-21 ;  his  reply  to 
Voltaire,  348 

Johnson,  Gerard,  his  monument  to 
the  poet  in  Stratford  Church,  276 

Johnson,  Robert,  lyrics  set  to  music 
by,  255  and  u  2 

Jones,  Inigo,  38  n  2 

Jonson,  Ben,  on  Shakespeare's  lack 
of  exact  scholarship,  16;  Shake- 
speare takes  part  in  the  perform- 
ance of  Eve?y  Alan  in  His  Humour 


INDEX 


461 


JORDA^f 

and  in  Sejanus,  44 ;  on  Tiliis  An- 
dronicus,  65 ;  on  the  appreciation 
of  Shakespeare  shown  by  EHza- 
beth  and  )anies  I,  82;  on  metrical 
artifice  in  sonnets,  106  ii  i ;  use  of 
the  word  '  lover,'  127  n  ;  identified 
by  some  as  the  '  rival  poet,"  136  ; 
his  '  dedicatory  ■  sonnets,  138  n  2, 
140;  relations  with  Shakespeare, 
176,  177;  share  in  the  appendix  to 
'Love's  Martyr,'  183;  quarrel  with 
Marston  and  Dekker,  214-20;  his 
'  Poetaster,"  217,  218  and  n ;  allu- 
sions to  him  in  the  Return  from 
Parnassus,  219;  his  criticism  of 
yuliiis  C(£sar,  220  n  \  satiric  allu- 
sion to  A  Winter's  Tale,  251,  and 
The  Tempest,  256 ;  entertained  by 
Shakespeare,  271 ;  testimony  to 
Shakespeare's  character,  277 ;  his 
tribute  to  Shakespeare,  306,  311, 
327;  Thorpe's  publication  of  works 
by.  395  «  3,  401 ;  his  Hue  and  Cry 
after  Cupid,  432  n  2 
Jordan,  ]ohn,  forgeries  of  (Appen- 
dix I.),"  365.  366 
Jordan,  Mrs.,  338,  339 
Jordan,  Thomas,  335  n 
Jourdain,  Sylvester,  252 
'Jubilee,'  Shakespeare's,  334 
Julius  CcEsar  :  127  n ;  plot  drawn 
from  Plutarch,  211;  date  of  pro- 
duction, 211;  a  play  of  the  same 
title  acted  in  1594,  211;  general 
features  of  the  play,  211,  212;  Jon- 
son's  hostile  criticism,  220  n.  For 
editions  see  Section  xix.  (Bibli- 
ography), 301-25 


Kean,  Edmund,  338,  351 

Keller,   A.,    German    translation    of 

Shakespeare  by,  344 
Kemble,  Charles,  351 
Kemble,  John  Philip,  337 
Kemp,  William,  comedian,  43,  208, 

219 
Kenilworth,  17;  cf.  162 
Ketzcher,  N.,  translation  into  Russian 

by,  353 

Killigrew,  Thomas,  334 

King's  players,  the  company  of,  35  ; 
Shakespeare  one  of  its  members, 
36;    the   poet's    plays    performed 


almost  exclusively  by,  36,  40  and 

n  I ;  King  James's  license  to,  230, 

231 
Kirkland,  occurrence  of  the  name  of 

Shakespeare  at,  i 
Kirkman,  Francis,  publisher,  i8r 
Knight,  Charles,  324 
Knollys,  Sir  William,  415  n 
Kok,  A.  S.,  translation  in  Dutch  by, 

352 
Korner,   J.,    German   translation   of 

Shakespeare  by,  345 
Kraszewski,  Polish  translation  edited 

by,  353 

Kreyssig,  Friedrich  A.  T.,  studies  of 
the  poet  by,  345 

Kyd,  Thomas,  influence  on  Shake- 
speare, 61;  alleged  author  of  Titus 
A'ldronicus,  65  ;  his  Spanish  Trag- 
edy, 65,  221 ;  dramatises  story  of 
Hamlet,  221  and  ti ;  Shakespeare's 
acquaintance  with  his  work,  222  n 


L.,  H.,  initials  on  seal  attesting 
Shakespeare's  autograph.  See 
Lawrence,  Henry 

La  Giuletta,  Luigi  da  Porto's,  55  «  i 

La  Harpe,  sides  with  Voltaire  in 
the  Shakespearean  controversy  in 
France,  349 

Labe,  Louise,  445  n 

Lamb,  Charles,  260,  338 

Lambarde,  William,  175 

Lambert,  Edmund,  mortgagee  of  the 
Asbies  property,  12,  26,  164 

Lambert,  John,  and  tlie  Asbies  prop- 
erty, 26  ;  John  Shakespeare's  law- 
suit with,  195 

Lane,  Nicholas,  a  creditor  of  John 
Shakespeare,  186 

Langbaine,  Gerard,  66,  362 

Laroche,   Benjamin,    translation  by, 

350 
Latin,  the  poet's  acquaintance  with, 

13.  15.  16 

'  Latten,'  use  of  the  word  in  Shake- 
speare, 177  n 

'  Laura,'  Shakespeare's  allusion  to 
her  as  Petrarch's  heroine,  108  ;  title 
of  Tofte's  collection  of  sonnets, 
438 

Law,  the  poet's  knowledge  of,  32  and 
cf.  n  2,  and  107 


462 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


LAWRENCE 

Lawrence,  Henry,  his  seal  beneath 
Shukespeaie's  autograph,  267 

Lear,  King:  date  of  composition, 
241;  produced  at  Whitehall,  241; 
Butter's  imperfect  editions,  241  ; 
mainly  founded  on  Holinshed's 
'Chronicle,'  241,  and  Sidney's 
'Arcadia,'  241;  the  character  of 
the  King,  242.  For  editions  see 
Section  xix.    (Bibliography)    301- 

25 
Legal    terminology    in     plays    and 

poems     of      the     Shakespearean 

period,  32  n  2,  and  Appendix  IX. ; 

cf.  107 
Legge,   Dr.  Thomas,  a  I.,atin  piece 

on  Richard  1 1 1  by,  63 
Leicester,  Earl  of,  entertains  Queen 

Elizabeth  at  Kenilworth,  17,  162; 

in    the    Low    Countries,   30;    his 

company  of  players,  33,  35 
Leo.  F.  A.,  346 
Leoni,   Michele,    Italian   translation 

of  the  poet  issued  by,  352 
'  Leopold  '  Shakespeare,  the,  325 
Lessing,  defence  of  Shakespeare  by, 

343 
L'Estrange,  Sir  Nicholas,  176 
Le  Tourneur,   Pierre,  French  prose 
translation  of  Shakespeare  by,  349 
'  Licia,"  Fletcher's  collection  of  son- 
nets called,  77  n  2,  103,  105, 1 13  n  5, 

433 
Linche,  Richard,  his  sonnets  entitled 

'  Diella,'  437 
Liiitot,  Bernard,  231 
Litigation,  Shakespeare's  liking  for, 

206 
Locke  (or  Lok),  Henry,  sonnets  by, 

338,  441 

'  Locrine,  Tragedie  of,'  179 

Lodge,  Thomas,  57,  61 ;  his  '  Scillas 
Metamorphosis  '  and  '  Venus  and 
Adonis,"  75  and  «  2;  his  plagia- 
risms, 103  and  n  3,  433  ;  his  '  Rosa- 
lynde,'  209 ;   his  '  Phillis,'  417,  433 

London  Prodigall,  180,  313 

Lope  de  Vega  dramatises  the  story 
of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  55  n  i 

Lopez,  Roderigo,  68  and  n 

Lorkin,  Rev.  Thomas,  on  the  burning 
of  the  Globe  Theatre,  261  71 

Love,  treatment  of,  in  Shakespeare's 
sonnets,  97  and  //,  98,  112,  113  and 


MACBETH 

»  2 ;  in  the  sonnets  of  other  writers, 
104-6,  113  «  2 

'Lover 'and  'love'  synonyms  with 
'  friend  '  and  '  friendship  '  in  Eliza- 
bethan English,  127  n 

'  Lover's  Complaint,  A,'  possibly  by 
Shakespeare,  91 

Love's  Labour's  Lost :  Latin  phrases 
in,  15;  probably  the  poet's  first 
dramatic  production,  50;  its  plot 
not  borrowed,  51  and  n,  52  ;  its  re- 
vision in  1597,  52  ;  date  of  publica- 
tion, 52;  influence  of  Lyiy,  62; 
performed  at  Whitehall,  81;  son- 
nets in,  84,  107;  the  praise  of 
'  blackness,'  118,  119  and  «  2  ;  per- 
formed at  Southampton's  house  in 
the  Strand,  384.  For  editions  see 
Section  xix.  (Bibliography), 301-25 

Love's  Labour's  Won,  attributed  by 
Meres  to  Shakespeare,  162.  See 
All's  Well 

'  Love's  Martyr,  or  Rosalin's  Com- 
plaint,' 183,  184  n,  304 

Lowell,  fames  Russell,  13  ??,  341 

Lucian,  the  Timon  of,  243 

'  Lucrece '  :  published  in  1594,  76, 
77  n  I,  n  2\  dedicated  to  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  77,  78,  126,  127  ; 
enthusiastic  reception  of,  78,  79; 
quarto  editions,  299, -goo 

Lucy,  Sir  Thomas,  277^x8;  carica- 
tured in  lustice  ShallowlSg,  173 

Luddington,  20 

Lydgate,  '  Troy  Book  '  of,  227 

LyIy,  John,  61 ;  influence  on  Shake- 
speare's comedies,  61,  62  ;  his 
addresses  to  Cupid,  97  n\  and 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  162 

Lyrics  in  Shakespeare's  plays,  207, 
250,  25s  and  n  2 

'M.,  L,'3o6.  See  also  '  S.,  L  M.' 
Macbeth:  the  references  to  the  climate 
of  Inverness,  41  (and  quotation  in 
«3),42;  date  of  composition,  239; 
the  story  drawn  from  Holinshed, 
239;  not  printed  until  1623,  239; 
the  shortest  of  the  poet's  plays, 
239;  points  of  difference  from 
other  plays  of  the  same  class,  240; 
Middleton's  plagiarisms  of,  240. 
For  editions  see  Section  xix.  (Bib- 
liography), 301-25 


INDEX 


463 


Macbeth,  Lady,  resemblance  between 
Clytemnestra  of  ^schylus  and, 
13  ;/ 

Mackay,  Mr.  Herbert,  on  the  dower 
of  the  poet's  widow,  274  n 

Macklin,  Charles,  336,  337 

Macready,    William    Charles,    339, 

351 
Madden,  Rt.  Hon.  D.  H.,  27  v,  168, 

364 
Magellan,    '  Voyage    to    the    South 

Pole '  by,  253 
Magny,  Olivier  de,  443 
Malone,  Edmund,  on  Shakespeare's 

first  employment  in  the  theatre,  34; 

on  the  poet's  residence,  38  ;  on  the 

date  of  The  Tempest,  254,  332,  333  ; 

his  writings,  321,  322,  362 
Malvolio,  popularity  of,  211 
Manners,    Lady    Bridget,   378,    379 

and  n 
Manningham,  John  (diarist),  210 
Manuscript,    circulation    of    sonnets 

in,  88  and  «,  391,  396 
Marino,  vituperative  sonnet  by,  122 

«  I.  443 

Markham,  Gervase,  his  adulation  of 
Southampton,  131,  134,  387 

Marlowe,  Christopher,  57 ;  his  share 
in  the  revision  of  Henry  VI,  60 ; 
his  influence  on  Shakespeare,  61, 
63,  64  ;  Shakespeare's  notices  of,  in 
As  YoiL  Like  It,  64;  his  'First 
Book  of  Lucan,'  90,  393,  399 

Marmontel  sides  with  Voltaire  in 
the  Shakespearean  controversy  in 
France,  349 

Marot,  Clement,  442 

Marriage,  treatment  of,  in  the  Son- 
nets, 98 

Marshall,  Mr.  F.  A.,  325 

Marston,  John,  identified  by  some 
as  the  'rival  poet,'  136,  183;  his 
quarrel  with  jonson,  214-20 

Martin,  an  English  actor  in  Scotland, 
41  and  n  i 

Martin,  Lady,  339,  365 

'Mary  Magdalene's  Funeral  Tears,' 
88  « 

Masks  worn  by  men  playing  women's 
parts,  38  «  2 

Massinger,  Philip,  258;  portions  of 
The  Tvjo  Noble  Kinsmen  as- 
signed to,  259 ;  the  conjecture  that 


MEZIERES 

he  collaborated  with  Fletcher  in 
Henry  VI 1 1,  263  and  «  2 

'  Mastic,'  use  of  the  word,  228  n 

Masuccio,  the  story  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  in  his  Xonellino,  55 

Matthew,  Sir  Toby,  371,  383 

Mayne,  Jasper,  306,  328  n 

Measure /or  Measure  :  the  offence  of 
Claudio,  23  ;/;  date  of  composi- 
tion, 235;  produced  at  Whitehall, 
235 ;  source  of  plot,  236 ;  devia- 
tions from  the  old  story,  237,  238 ; 
the  argument,  238  ;  references  to 
a  ruler's  dislike  of  mobs,  738.  J-'or 
editions  see  Section  .xi.x.  (Bibliog- 
raphy), 301-25 

Melin  de  Saint-Gelais,  442 

Memorials  in  sculpture  to  the  poet, 
297 

Menczchml  of  Plautus,  54 

Mendelssohn,  setting  of  Shakespea- 
rean songs  by,  347 

Merchant  of  Venice:  the  influence 
of  Marlowe,  63,  68 ;  sources  of 
the  plot,  66,  67 ;  the  last  act,  69 ; 
date  of,  69;  use  of  the  word  '  lover,' 
127  n.  For  editions  see  Section 
xi.x.  (Bibliography),  301-25 

Meres,  Francis,  on  Shakespeare's 
'  sugred  '  sonnets,  89;  his  quota- 
tions from  Horace  and  Ovid, 
116  n\  attributes  Love's  Labour's 
Won  to  Shakespeare,  162 ;  on  the 
poet's  literary  reputation,  178,  179, 
390 

Mermaid  Tavern,  177,  178 

Merry  Devill  of  Edmonton,  181,  258 
n  2 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  15 ;  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  caricatured  in  Jus- 
tice Shallow,  29 ;  lines  from  Mar- 
lowe sung  by  Sir  Hugh  Evans,  64, 
65 ;  period  of  production,  171 ; 
publication  of  the  play,  172;  the 
plot,  172 ;  chief  characteristics, 
173.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

Metre   of  Shakespeare's    plays,   48- 

50 
Metre  of  Shakespeare's  poems,  75- 

77 
Metre  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets,  95 

and  n  2 
Mezi^res,  Alfred,  350 


464 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


Michel,  Francisque,  translation  by, 
350 

Middle  Temple  Hall,  performance 
of  Twelfth  Night  at,  210 

Middleton,  Thomas,  his  allusion  to 
Le  Motte  in  Blurt,  Master  Con- 
stable, 51  71 ;  his  plagiarisms  of 
Macbeth  in  The  Witch,  240 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream  :  refer- 
ences to  the  pageants  at  Kenilworth 
Park,  17,  162;  references  to  Spen- 
ser's '  Teares  of  the  Muses,'  80; 
date  of  production,  161 ;  sources 
of  the  story,  162;  the  scheme  of 
the  play,  162.  T'or  editions  see 
Section   xix.    (Bibliography),  301- 

25 
Milton,  179  >t ;  his  epitaph  on  Shake- 
speare, 327 
Minto,    Professor,    on    Chapman    as 

Shakespeare's  '  rival '  poet,  135  n 
Miranda,  character  of,  256 
'  Mirror  of  Martyrs,'  211 
Miseries  of  Enforced  Marriage,  243 
'  Monarcho,  Fantastioall,'  51  « 
Money,  its  purchasing  power  in  the 

sixteenth  century,  3  n  3,  197  n 
Montagu,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  348 
Montaigne, ,'  Essays  '  of,  84  n,  253 
Montegiit,  Emile,  translation  by,  350 
Monteniayor,  George  de,  53 
Montgomery,    Philip    Herbert,    Earl 

of,  306,  381,  410 
Monument  to  Shakespeare  in  Strat- 
ford Church,  276,  286 
Morley,  Lord,  140  n 
Mortgage-deed  signed  by  the  poet, 

267 
Moseley,  Humphrey,  publisher,  181, 

258,  259 
Mothe,  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  51  n 
Moulton,  Dr.  Richard  G.,  365 
Miicedorus,     wrongly     assigned     to 

Shakespeare,  72 
Much  Ado  about  Nothing:  a  jesting 
allusion  to  sonnetteering.  108  ;  its 
publication,  207,  208  ;  date  of,  208  ; 
the  comic  characters,  208  ;  Italian 
origin  of  Hero  and  Claudio,  208 ; 
parts  taken  by  William  Kemp  and 
Cowley,  208 ;  quotation  from  the 
Spanish  Tragedy,  221  n.  For  edi- 
tions see  Section  xix.  (Bibliogra- 
phy), 301-25 


OECHELHAEUSER 

Mulberry-tree  at  New  Place,  the, 
194  and  n 

Music :  at  stage  performances  in 
Shakespeare's  day,  38  ti  2 ;  its 
indebtedness  to  the  poet,  340 


Nash,  Anthony,  the  poet's  legacy  to, 
276 

Nash,  John,  the  poet's  legacy  to,  276 

Nash,  Thomas,  (i)  marries  Elizabeth 
Hall,  Shakespeare's  granddaugh- 
ter, 282 

Nash,  Thomas,  (2)  on  the  perform- 
ance of  Henry  IT,  56,  57;  his 
'Terrors  of  the  Night,'  88  n;  on 
the  immortalising  power  of  verse, 
1 14  ;  use  of  the  word  '  lover,'  127  «  ; 
his  appeals  to  Southampton,  131, 
134.  135  «.  385.  386;  on  Kyd's 
'Hamlets,'  221  n,  427  n  2;  his 
preface  to  '  Astrophel  and  Stella,' 
429  n  I 

Navarre,  King  of,  in  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  51  w 

Neil,  Samuel,  364 

Nekrasow  and  Gerbel,  translation 
into  Russian  by,  353 

New  Place,  Stratford,  Shakespeare's 
purchase  of,  193,  194 ;  entertain- 
ment of  Jonson  and  Drayton  at, 
271 ;  the  poet's  death  at,  272  ;  sold 
to  Sir  Edward  Walker,  283;  dem- 
olition of,  283 

Newcastle,  Margaret  Cavendish, 
Duchess  of,  criticism  of  the  poet 
by,  331 

Newdegate,  Lady,  406  /;,  415 
Newington  Butts  Theatre,  37 
Newman,  Thomas,  piratical  publica- 
tion of  Sir  Philip  Sidney's  sonnets 
by,  88  n,  429  and  n  i 
Nicolson,  George,  English  agent  in 

Scotland,  41  n  i 
Nottingham,  Earl  of,  his  company  of 
players,  225  ;  taken  into  the  patron- 
age of  Henry,  Prince   of  Wales, 
231  n 


Oberon,  vision  of,  17, 161 ;  in  '  Huon 

of  Bordeaux,'  162 
Oechelhaeuser,  W.,  acting  edition  of 

the  poet  by,  346 


INDEX 


46s 


OLDCASTLE 

Oldcastle,  Sir  John,  versions  of  his 
history,  170,  313 

'  Oldcastle,  Sir  John,"  the  original 
name  of  Falstaff  in  Henry  IV, 
169 

Oldys,  William,  231,  362 

Olney,  Henry,  publisher,  437 

Orlando  Furioso,  47  n,  208 

Ortlepp,  E.,  German  translation  of 
Shakespeare  by,  344 

Othello  :  date  of  composition,  235  ; 
not  printed  in  the  poet's  lifetime, 
235 ;  plot  drawn  from  Cmthio's 
'  Hecatommithi,'  236;  new  char- 
acters and  features,  236.  For 
editions  see  Section  xix.  (Bibliog- 
raphy), 301-25 

Ovid,  influence  on  Shakespeare  of 
his  '  Metamorphoses,'  15,  75  and 
//  I,  76,  162,  253;  claims  immor- 
tality for  his  verse,  114  and  n  i, 
116  «;  the  poet's  signature  said  to 
be  on  the  title-page  of  a  copy  of 
the  '  Metamorphoses  '  in  the  Bod- 
leian Library,  15 

Oxford,  the  poet's  visiis  to,  31,  265, 
266 ;  Hamlet  acted  at,  224 

Oxford,  Earl  of,  his  company  of 
actors,  35 

'  Oxford '  edition  of  Shakespeare, 
the,  325 


Painter,  William,  his  'Palace  of 
Pleasure  '  and  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,' 
55;  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well, 
163  ;  Timon  of  Athens,  243  ;  and 
Coriolanus,  246 

Palcemon  and  Arcyte,  a  lost  play,  260 

Palamon  and  Arsett,  a  lost  play,  260 

Palladis  Tamia,  eulogy  on  the  poet 
in,  178 

Palmer,  John,  actor,  337 

'  Pandora,'  Soothern's  collection  of 
love-sonnets,  138  n  23 

Pandosfo  (afterwards  called  Dorastus 
and  Fawnia),  Shakespeare's  in- 
debtedness to,  251 

Parodies  on  sonnefteering,  106-8, 
122  and  n 

Parthenophil  and  Parthenophe,  the, 
of  Barnes,  132 

Pasquier,  Estienne,  443 

Passerat,  Jean,  443 


PERKES 

Passionate  Cenfurie  of  Love,  WaU 
son's,  77;  plagiarism  in,  loi  n  4, 
102,  427  n  2,  428 

'Passionate  Pilgrim,' piraiical  inser- 
tion of  two  sonnets  in,  98,  182,  437; 
the  remaining  coiitt-nts  ol,  182  n, 
299 ;  printed  with  Shakespeare's 
poems,  300 

Patrons  and  companies  of  players, 
35 ;  adulation  offered  to,  138  and 
n  2,  140,  141,  440  and  n 

Pavier,  "Thomas,  printer,  180 

'  Pecorone,  II,'  by  Ser  Giovanni 
Fiorentino,  14,  66  and  ?i  3,  172; 
W.  G.  Waters's  translation  of, 
66  n  3 

Peele,  George,  57;  his  share  in  the 
original  draft  of  Henry  1 7,  60 

Pembioke,  Countess  of,  dedication 
of  Daniel's  'Delia'  to,  130,  429; 
homage  paid  to,  by  Nicholas 
Breton,  138  n  2 

Pembroke.  William,  third  Earl  of, 
the  question  of  the  identification  of 
'  Mr.  \V.  H.'  with,  94,  406-15;  ]jer- 
formance  at  his  Wilton  residence, 
231,  232  n  I,  411;  the  First  Folio, 
306 ;  his  alleged  relations  with 
Shakespeare,  23  n,  411-15;  dedi- 
cations by  Thorpe  to,  399  and  n  1, 
403  fi  2 

Pembroke,  Henry,  second  Earl  of, 
his  company  of  players  perform 
Henry  I'l  (pt.  iii.),  36,  59:  and 
Titus  Andronicus,  66 

Penrith,  Shakespeares  at,  i 

Pepys,  his  criticisms  of  J  he  Tempest 
and    Midsummer   A'ight  s    Dream 

329 

Percy,  William,  his  sonnets,  entitled 
'C'oelia,'  435 

Perez,  Antonio,  and  Antonio  in  The 
Merchant  of  Venice,  68  71 

Pericles:  date  of  composition,  242; 
a  work  of  collaboration,  242;  lack 
of  homogeneitv,  244  ;  dates  of  the 
various  editions,  244  ;  not  included 
in  the  First  Folio,  305;  included 
in  Third  Folio,  313.  For  editions 
see  Section  xix.  (Bibliography), 
301-25 

Perkes  (Clement),  in  Henry  IV, 
the  name  of  a  family  at  Stinch- 
combe  Hill,  168 


466 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


'  Perkins  Folio,'  forgeries  in  the,  312, 
317  n  2  (Appendix),  367  and  ti 

Personalities  on  the  stage,  215  n  I 

Peruse,  Jean  de  la,  443 

Petowe,  Henry,  elegy  on  Queen 
Elizabeth  by,  148 

Petrarch,  emulated  by  Elizabethan 
sonnetteers,  84,  85,  86  n ;  feigns 
old  age  in  his  sonnets,  86  n ;  his 
metre,  95 ;  Spenser's  translations 
from,  loi ;  imitation  of  his  son- 
nets justified  by  Gabriel  Harvey, 
loi  n  4;  plagiarisms  admitted  by 
sonnetteers,  loi  n  4;  Wyatt's 
translations  of,  loi  n  4,  427  ;  plagi- 
arised indirectly  by  Shakespeare, 
no,  III  and ;/,  113  «  I ;  the  melan- 
choly of  his  sonnets,  152  n ;  imi- 
tated in  France,  443 

Phelps,  Samuel,  325,  339 

Phillips,  Augustine,  actor,  friend  of 
Shakespeare,  36;  induced  to  re- 
vive Richard  II  at  the  Globe  in 
i6or,  175  ;   his  death,  264 

Phillips,  Edward  (Milton's  nephew), 
362,  439  n  I 

'  Phillis,'  Lodge's  118  n  2,  433  and 

«3 

Philosophy,  Chapman's  sonnets  in 
praise  of,  441 

'  Phcsnix  and  the  Turtle,  The,'  183, 
184,  304 

Pichot,  A.,  350 

'  Pierces  Supererogation,"  by  Gabriel 
Harvey,  loi  11  4,  105 

Pindar,  his  claim  for  the  immortality 
of  verse,  114  and  n  i 

Plague,  the,  in  Stratford-on-Avon, 
10;  in  London,  65,  231 

Plautus,  the  plot  of  the  Comedy  of 
Errors  drawn  from,  16;  transla- 
tion of,  54 

Plays,  sale  of,  47  and  n\  revision  of, 
47;  their  publication  deprecated 
by  playhouse  authorities,  48  fi ; 
only  a  small  proportion  printed, 
48  n  ;  prices  paid  for,  202  « 

'  Pleiade,  La,'  title  of  the  literary 
comrades  of  Ronsard,  442 ;  list  of, 

443 

'Plutarch,'  North's  translation  of, 
Shakespeare's  indebtedness  to,  47, 
162,  211,  243,  245  and  ;;,  246  and  n 

Poaching  episode,  the,  27,  28 


QUEEN'S 

Poetaster,  Jonson's,  217,  218  and  n 

Poland,  translations  and  perform- 
ances of  Shakespeare  in,  353 

Pontoux,  Claude  de,  name  of  his 
heroine  copied  by  Drayton,  104 

Pope,  Alexander,  297 ;  edition  of 
Shakespeare  by,  315 

Porto,  Luigi  da,  adapts  the  story  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  55  //  i 

Portraits  of  the  poet,  286-93,  296 
7t  2  ;  the  '  Stratford  '  portrait,  287  ; 
Droeshout's  engraving,  287,  288, 
30G,  306;  the  'Droeshout'  paint- 
ing, 288-91 ;  portrait  in  the  Clar- 
endon gallery,  291;  'Ely  House' 
portrait,  290,  291 ;  '  Chandos  '  por- 
trait, 292,  293  ;  '  Jansen  '  portrait, 
293,  294  ;  '  Felton  '  and  '  Soest ' 
portraits,  294 ;  miniatures,  295 

Pott,  Mrs.  Henry,  372 

Prevost,  Abbe,  348 

Pritchard,  Mrs.,  336 

Procter,  Bryan  Waller  (Barry  Corn- 
wall), 324 

Promos  and  Cassandra,  237 

Prospero,  character  of,  257 

Publication  of  dramas :  deprecated 
by  playhouse  authorities,  48  «; 
only  a  small  proportion  of  the 
dramas  of  the  period  printed,  48  n  ; 
only  sixteen  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
published  in  his  lifetime,  48 

Punning,  418,  419  n 

Purita'me,  or  the  Widdow  of  Wat- 
lu7g-streete.   The,  180,  313 

Puritanism,  alleged  prevalence  in 
Stratford-on-Avon  of,  10  n,  268 
no.;  its  hostility  to  dramatic  repre- 
sentations, 10  ;;,  212,  213  n  I ;  the 
poet's  references  to,  268  n  i 

'  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,'  397 


QUARLES,  John,  '  Banishment  of 
Tarquin  '  of,  300 

Quarto  editions  of  the  plays,  in  the 
poet's  lifetime,  301,  302;  posthu- 
mous, 302,  303 

of   the    poems   in   the   poet's 

lifetime,  299;  posthumous,  300 

'  Quatorzain,'  term  applied  to  the 
Sonnet,  427  «  2 ;  cf.  429  n  I 

'  Queen's  Children  of  the  Chapel," 
the,  34,  35,  38,  213-17 


INDEX 


467 


QUEEN'S 

Queen's  Company  of  Actors,  at 
Stratford-on-Avon,  10;  its  return 
to  London,  33,  35,  231  tt 

Quiney,  Thomas,  marries  Judith 
Shakespeare,  271;  his  residence 
in  Stratford,  280;  his  children,  281 

Quinton,  165 


Ralegh,  Sir  Walter,  extravagant 
apostrophe  to  Queen  Elizabeth  by, 
137  «  I,  182  n 

Rapp,  M.,  German  translation  of 
Shakespeare  by,  344 

'  Ratseis  Ghost,'  and  Ratsey's  ad- 
dress to  the  players,  185,  199 

Ravenscroft,  Edward,  on  Titus  An- 
di-oiiiciis,  65,  332 

Reed,  Isaac,  321,  322 

Reformation,  the,  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  10  ?! 

Rehan,  Miss  Ada,  342 

Religion  and  Philosophy,  sonnets  on 
(Appendix  ix.),  440,  441 

Return  from  Parnassus,  The,  198, 
199  n  I,  218-20,  277 

Revision  of  plays,  the  poet's,  47,  48 

Reynoldes,  William,  the  poet's  legacy 
to,  276 

Rich,  Barnabe,  story  of  '  Apollonius 
and  Silla'  by,  53,  210 

Rich,  Penelope,  Lady,  Sidney's  pas- 
sion for,  428 

Richard  II :  the  influence  of  Mar- 
lowe, 63,  64 ;  published  anony- 
mously, 63  ;  the  deposition  scene, 
64;  probably  composed  in  1593, 
64;  the  facts  drawn  from  Holin- 
shed,  64;  its  revival,  175,  383.  For 
editions  sec  Section  xix.  (Bibli- 
ography), 301-25 

Richard  In :  the  influence  of  Mar- 
lowe, 63 ;  materials  drawn  from 
Holinshed,  63 ;  Mr.  Swinburne's 
criticism,  63;  Burbage's  imperso- 
nation of  the  hero,  63 ;  published 
anonymously,  63  ;  Colley  Gibber's 
adaptation,  335.  For  editions  see 
Section   xix.   (Bibliography),  301- 

25 
Richardson,  John,  20,  22 
Richmond  Palace,  performances  at, 

82,  230 
Ristori,  Madame,  352 


ROWE 

Roberts,    James,    printer,    225,    226, 

303.  431 

Robinson,  Clement,  use  of  the  word 
'  sonnet '  by,  427  n  2 

Roche,  Walter,  master  of  Stratford 
Grammar  School,  13 

Roles,  Shakespeare's:  at  Greenwich 
Palace,  43,  44  //  1 ;  in  Every  Man 
in  his  Humour,  44  ;  in  Sejanus,  44 ; 
the  Ghost  in  Hamlet,  44;  'some 
kingly  parts  in  sport,'  44;  Adam 
in  As  You  Like  It,  44 

Rolfe,  Mr.  W.  J.,  325 

Romeo  and  Juliet,  54 ;  plot  drawn 
from  the  Italian,  55;  date  of  com- 
position, 56;  pulilication  of,  56; 
two  choruses  in  tlie  sonnet  form, 
84;  allusion  to  sonnetteering,  108. 
For  editions  see  Section  xix.  (Bib- 
liography), 301-35 

Romeus  and  Juliet,  Arthur  Brooke's, 
322 

Ronsard,  plagiarised  by  English  son- 
netteers,  102,  103  n  3,  432  seq. ;  by 
Shakespeare,  iii,  112  and  n  i ;  his 
claim  for  the  immortality  of  verse, 
114  and  n  i,  116  n;  his  sonnets  of 
vituperation,  121 ;  gave  the  sonnet 
a  literary  vogue  in  France,  442; 
and  '  La  Pleiade,'  442  ;  modern  re- 
print of  his  works,  445  n 

Rosalind,  played  by  a  boy,  38  «  2 

Rosaline,  praised  for  her  '  blackness,' 
118,  119 

'  Rosalynde,  Euphues  Golden  Lega- 
cie,'  Lodge's,  209 

Rose  Theatre,  Bankside,  erected  by 
Philip  Henslowe,  36;  opened  by 
Lord  Strange's  company,  36;  the 
scene  of  the  poet's  first  successes, 
37  ;  performance  of  Henry  VI,  56 ; 
production  of  the  Venesyon  Comedy, 
69 

Rossi,  representation  of  Shakespeare 
by,  352 

Roussillon,  Countess  of,  163 

Rowe,  Nicholas,  on  the  parentage  of 
Shakespeare's  wife,  18;  on  Shake- 
speare's poaching  escapade,  27 ; 
on  Shakespeare's  performance  as 
the  Ghost  in  Hamlet,  44;  on  the 
story  of  Southampton's  gift  to 
Shakespeare,  126;  on  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's enthusiasm  for  the  character 


468 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


ROWINGTON 

of  Falstaff,  171 ;  on  the  poet's  last 
years  at  Stratford,  266;  on  John 
Combe's  epitaph,  269  ti ;  his 
edition  of  the.  poet's  plays,  314,  362 

Rowington,  Shakespeares  of,  2 

Rowlands,  Samuel,  397 

Rowley,  William,  181,  243 

Roydon,  Matthew,  on  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney, 140,  184  n 

Rusconi,  Carlo,  Italian  prose  version 
of  Shakespeare  by,  352 

Russia,  Shakespeare  in,  352,  353 

Rymer,  Thomas,  his  censure  of  the 
poet,  329 

'  S.,  M.  I.,'  tribute  to  the  poet  in  the 
Second  Folio  thus  headed,  327  and 
n,  328 

'  S.,  W.,'  initials  in  Willobie's  book, 
156,  157 ;  commonness  of  the 
initials,  157  n ;  use  of  the  initials 
on  works  fraudulently  attributed  to 
the  poet,  179,  180 

Sackville,  Thomas,  408  n 

Sadler,  Hainlett,  the  poet's  legacy  to, 
276 

St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  a  William 
Shakespeare  in  1598  living  in,  38 
and  n  1 

Saint-Saens,  M.,  o-pe.ra.oi  Henry  VIII 
by,  351 

Sainte-Marthe,  Sc^vole  de,  443 

Salvini,  representation  of  Othello  by, 
352 

Sand,  George,  translation  of  As  You 
Like  It  by,  351 

Sandells,  Fulk,  and  Shakespeare's 
marriage,  20,  22 ;  supervisor  of 
Richard  Hathaway's  will,  22 

Saperton,  27,  29 

'  Sapho  and  Phao,'  address  to  Cupid 
in,  97  n 

Satlro-Mastix,  a  retort  to  Jonson's 
Cynthia's  Revels,  215 

Savage,  Mr.  Richard,  363 

'  Saviolo's  Practise,'  209 

Scenery  unknown  in  Shakespeare's 
day,  38  and  n  2 ;  designed  by  Inigo 
Jones  for  masks  in  the  palaces 
of  James  I,  38  ;/  2 ;  Sir  Philip  Sid- 
ney and  difficulties  arising  from  its 
absence,  38  «  2 

Schiller,  adaptation  of  Macbeth  for 
the  stage  by,  345 


SHAKESPEARE 

Schlegel,  180;  German  translation  oi 
Shakespeare  by,  343;  lectures  on 
Shakespeare  by,  344 

Schmidt,  Alexander,  364 

'  Schoole  of  Abuse,'  67 

Schroeder,  F.  U.  L.,  German  actor  of 
Shakespeare,  346 

Schubert,  Franz,  setting  of  Shake- 
spearean songs  by,  347 

Schumann,  setting  of  Shakespearean 
songs  by,  347 

'  Scillas  Metamorphosis,'  Lodge's,  75 
and  «  2 

Scoloker,  Anthony,  his  '  Daiphantus,' 
277 

Scotland :  Shakespeare's  alleged 
travels  in,  40-42;  visits  of  actors 
to,  41  n  I 

Scot,  Reginald,  allusion  to  Monarcho 
in  '  The  Discoverie  of  Witchcraft ' 
of,  51  « 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  at  Charlecote,  28 

Scourge  of  Folly,  44  n  2 

Sedley,  Sir  Charles,  apostrophe  to 
the  poet,  331 

Sejanus,  Shakespeare  takes  part  in 
the  performance  of,  44,  401 

Selimus,  179 

Serafino  dell'  Aquila,  Watson's  in- 
debtedness to,  77  n  2,  102,  103  n  I 

S6ve,  Maurice,  104  and  «,  430,  442, 

445  «  I 

Sewell,  Dr.  George,  315 

'  Shadow  of  the  Night,  The,'  Chap- 
man's, 135  n 

Shakespeare,  the  surname  of,  i,  2, 
cf.  24  n 

Shakespeare,  Adam,  i 

Shakespeare,  Ann,  a  sister  of  the 
poet,  II 

Shakespeare,  Anne  (or  Agnes)  :  her 
parentage,  18,  19;  her  marriage  to 
the  poet,  18,  19-22;  the  assumed 
identification  of  her  with  Anne 
Whateley  untenable,  23,  24  and  n\ 
her  debt,  187;  her  husband's  be- 
quest to  her,  273 ;  her  widow's 
dower  barred,  274  and  u  \  her 
wish  to  be  buried  in  her  husband's 
grave,  274;  committed  by  her 
husband  to  the  care  of  the  elder 
daughter,  275 ;  her  death,  and  the 
inscription  above  her  grave,  280 
and  n 


INDEX 


469 


SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare,  Edmund,  a  brother  of 
the  poet,  11;  becomes  'a  player,' 
283;  death,  283 

Shakespeare,  Gilbert,  a  brother  of 
the  poet,  11;  sees  him  play  the 
part  of  Adam  in  As  You  Like  It, 
44;  survived  the  poet  and  ap- 
parently had  a  son  named  Gilbert, 
283 

Shakespeare,  Hamnet,  son  of  the 
poet,  26,  187 

Shakespeare,  Henry,  one  of  the 
poet's  uncles,  3,  4,  186 

Shakespeare,  Joan  (i),  7  [Joan 

Shakespeare,  Joan   (2).     See   Hart, 

Shakespeare,  John  (i),  the  first  re- 
corded holder  of  this  surname 
(thirteenth  century),  i. 

Shakespeare,  John  (2),  the  poet's 
father,  administrator  of  Richard 
Shakespeare's  estate,  3,  4  ;  claims 
that  his  grandfather  received  a  grant 
of  land  from  Henry  VH,  2,  189; 
leaves  Snitterfield  and  sets  up  in 
business  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  4; 
his  property  in  Stratford  and  his 
municipal  offices,  5  ;  marries  Mary 
Arden,  6,  7;  his  children,  7;  his 
house  in  Henley  Street,  Stratford, 
8,  II;  appointed  alderman  and 
bailiff,  10;  welcomes  actors  at 
Stratford,  10;  his  alleged  sympa- 
thies with  Puritanism,  10  n;  his 
application  for  a  grant  of  arms,  2, 
10  «,  188-92;  his  financial  diffi- 
culties, II,  12;  his  younger  chil- 
dren, II ;  writ  of  distraint  issued 
against  him,  12 ;  deprived  of  his 
alderman's  gown,  12 ;  increase  of 
pecuniary  difficulties,  186 ;  re- 
lieved by  the  poet,  187  ;  his  death, 
204 

Shakespeare  or  Shakspere,  John  (a 
shoemaker),  another  resident  at 
Stratford,  12  ?/  3. 

Shakespeare,  Judith,  the  poet's  sec- 
ond daughter,  26,  205 ;  her  mar- 
riage to  Thomas  Quiney,  271 ;  her 
father's  bequest  to  her,  275  ;  her 
children,  280,  281 ;  her  death,  281 

Shakespeare,  Margaret,  7 

Shakespeare,  Mary,  the  poet's 
mother:  her  marriage,  6,  7;  her 
parentage,  6,  7 ;    her  property,  7 ; 


SHAKESPEARE 

her  title  to  bear  the  arms  of  the 
Arden  family,  191 ;  her  death,  266 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  a  brother  of 
the  poet,  II,  266;  his  death,  283 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  of  Rowing- 
ton,  2 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  of  Snitterfield, 
probably  the  poet's  grandfather,  3 ; 
his  family,  3,  4;  letters  of  adminis- 
tration of  his  estate,  3  and  n  3 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  of  Wroxhall, 

3 

Shakespeare,  Susannah,  a  daughter 
of  the  poet,  22.  See  also  Hall,  Mrs. 
Susannah 

Shakespeare,  Thomas,  probably  one 
of  the  poet's  uncles,  3,  4 

SHAKESPEARE,  WlLLlAM :  paren- 
tage and  birthplace,  i-g ;  child- 
hood, education,  and  marriage, 
10-24  (see  also  Education  of  Shake- 
speare; Shakespeare,  Anne  or 
Agnes)  ;  departure  from  Stratford, 
27-31;  theatrical  employment,  32- 
4;  joins  the  Lord  Chamberiam's 
company,  36;  his  roles,  43;  his 
first  plays,  50-73;  publication  of 
'  V^enus  and  Adonis'  and  'Lucrece,' 
74,  76  sec/.;  his  Sonnets,  83-124, 
151-6;  patronage  of  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  125-50;  plays  com- 
posed brlween  1595  and  1598,  161- 
73 ;  his  popularity  and  influence, 
176-9;  returns  to  Stratford  in 
1596,  187 ;  buys  New  Place,  193 ; 
financial  position  before  1599,  196 
seq. ;  financial  position  after  1599, 
200  seq.  ;  formation  of  his  estate  at 
Stratford,  204  seq. ;  plays  written 
between  1599  and  1609,  207-47; 
the  latest  plays,  248  set/. ;  per- 
formance of  his  plays  at  Court,  264 
{see  also  CourX;  Whitehall;  Eliza- 
beth, Queen;  James  I)  ;  final  set- 
tlement in  Stratford  (1611),  266 
seq.;  death  (1616),  272;  his  will, 
273  seq.;  monument  at  Stratford, 
276 ;  personal  character,  277-9  '• 
his  survivors  and  descendants,  280 
seq.;  autographs,  portraits,  and 
memorials,  284-98 ;  bibliography, 
299-325;  his  posthumous  reputa- 
tion in  England  and  abroad,  326- 
54 ;  general  estimate  of  his  work, 


470 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 


SHAKESPEARE 

355-7 ;  biographical  sources,  361- 
5 ;  alleged  relations  with  the  Earl 
of  Pembroke,  411-15 
Shakespeare  Gallery   in    Pall   Mall, 

341 
'  Shakespeare  Society,'  the,  333,  365 
Shallow,  Justice,  Sir  Thomas  Lucy 
caricatured  as,  29 ;    his  house  in 
Gloucestershire,  167,  168,  173 
Sheldon  copy  of  the  First  Folio,  the, 

309,  310 
Shelton,  Thomas,  translator  of  '  Don 

Quixote,'  258 
Shiels,  Robert,  compiler  of  '  Lives  of 

the  Poets,'  32  11  3 
Shottery,  Anne  Hathaway's  Cottage 

at,  19 
Shylock,  sources  of  the  portrait,  67, 

68  and  n 
Siddons,  Mrs.  Sarah,  337,  338 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip :    on  the  absence 
of  scenery  in  a  theatre,  38  «  2 ; 
translation  of  verses  from  '  Diana,' 
53 ;     Shakespeare's    indebtedness 
to,  61 ;    addressed   as  '  Willy '  by 
some    of   his    eulogists,    81;     his 
"Astrophel  and  Stella'  brings  the 
sonnet  into  vogue,  83;    piracy  of 
his  sonnets,  88  n,  432;  circulation 
of  manuscript  copies  of  his  'Ar- 
cadia,'   88    n ;     his    addresses    to 
Cupid    in    his    'Astrophel,'  97  71  \ 
warns  the  public  against  the   in- 
sincerity of  sonnetteers,   104;    his 
allusion  to  the  conceit  of  the  im- 
mortalising power  of  verse,  114; 
his  praise  of  'blackness,'  119  and 
n  I ;  sonnet  on  '  Desire,'  153  ;  use 
of  the  word  '  will,'  417  ;  '  Astrophel 
and  Stella,'  428,  429  ;  popularity  of 
his  works,  429 
Sidney,  Sir  Robert,  382 
Singer,  Samuel  Waller,  324 
Sly,  Christopher,  164-7,  221  7i 
Smethwick,  John,  bookseller,  304 
Smith,  Richard,  publisher,  431 
Smith,  Wentworth,  157  ;/ ;  plays  pro- 
duced by,  180  71 ;  the  question  of 
his  initials  on  six  plays  attributed 
to  Shakespeare,  180  71 
Smith,  William,  sonnets  of,  138  «  2, 

157  ".  390,  437 
Smith,  Mr.  W.  H.,  and  the  Baconian 

hypothesis,  372 


Smithson,  Miss,  actress,  351 

Snitterfield :  Richard  Shakespeare 
rents  land  of  Robert  Arden  there, 
3,  6;  departure  of  John  Shake- 
speare, the  poet's  father,  from,  4; 
the  Arden  property  at,  7 ;  sale  of 
Mary  Shakespeare's  property  at, 
12  and  «  I,  186 

Snodham,  Thomas,  printer,  180 

Somers,  Sir  George,  wrecked  off  the 
Bermudas,  252 

Somerset  House,  Shakespeare  and 
his  company  summoned  to,  233 
and  71  2 

Sonnet  in  France  (1550-1600),  the 
bibliographical  note  on,  442-5 

Sonnets,  Shakespeare's :  the  poet's 
first  attempts,  84;.  the  majority 
probably  composed  in  1594,  85  ;  a 
few  written  between  1594  and  1603 
{e.g.  cvii.)  ;  their  literary  value,  87, 
88  ;  circulation  in  manuscript,  88, 
396;  his  '  sugred '  sonnets  com- 
mended by  Meres,  89;  their 
piratical  publication  in  1609,  89- 
94,  390;  their, form,  95,  96;  want 
of  continuity,  96,  160;  usually 
divided  into  two  'groups,'  96,  97; 
main  topics  of  the  first  '  group,'  98, 
99  ;  main  topics  of  second  '  group," 
99,  100  ;  rearrangement  in  the  edi- 
tion of  1640, 100 ;  autobiographical 
only  in  a  limited  sense,  100,  109, 
125,  152,  160;  censure  of  them  by 
Sir  John  Davies,  107 ;  the  bor- 
rowed conceits  of,  109-24 ;  in- 
debtedness to  Drayton,  Petrarch, 
Ronsard,  De  Baif,  Desportes,  and 
others,  110-12;  the  poet's  claim 
of  immortality  for  his  sonnets, 
113-16,  cf.  114  71  i;  the  'Will 
Sonnets,'  117,  420-4;  praise  of 
'blackness,'  118;  vituperation, 
120-4;  'dedicatory'  sonnets,  125 
seq.;  the  'rival  poet'  of,  130-6; 
sonnets  of  friendship,  136,  138-47; 
the  supposed  story  of  intrigue  in, 
153-8 ;  summary  of  conclusions 
respecting,  158^0;  edition  of 
1640,  300 

Sonnets  quoted  with  explanatory 
comments:  xx.,  93  «  ;  xxvi.,  128  «  ; 
xxxii.,  128,  129  «;  xxxvii.,  130; 
xxxviii.,    129;    xxxix.,   130;    xlvi.- 


INDEX 


471 


SONNETS 

xlvii.,  112,  113  «  i;  Iv.,  115,  116; 
Ixxiv.,  130;  Ixxviii.,  125;  Ixxx.,  134; 
Ixxxv.,  133;  Ixxxvi.,  132;  Ixxxviii., 
133;  Ixxxix.,  133;  xciv.  I.  14,  72, 
89;  c,  126;  cvii.,  13  71,  87,  147, 
149,380;  cviii.,  130;  ex.,  44,  130; 
cxi.,  45 ;  cxix.,  152  and  n ;  cxxiv., 
425 ;  cxxvi.,  97  and  « ;  cxxvii., 
iiS';  cxxix.,  152,  153  and  n  i; 
cxxxii.,  118;  cxxxv.-cxxxvi.,  420- 
4;  cxxxviii.,  89;  exiiii.,  93  7t,  425, 
426  and  n ;  cxliv.,  89,  153,  301 ; 
cliii.-cliv.,  113  and  n  2 

—  the  vogue  of  the  Elizabethan : 
English  sonnetteering  inaugurated 
by  Wyatt  and  Surrey,  83,  427, 
428 ;  followed  by  Thomas  Wat- 
son, 83,  428  ;  Sidney's  '  Astrophel 
and  Stella,'  83,  428,  429  and  « ; 
poets  celebrate  patrons'  virtues 
in  sonnets,  84;  conventional  de- 
vice of  sonnetteers  of  feigning  old 
age,  85  (and  examples  in  86  ;/)  ; 
lack  of  genuine  sentiment,  100; 
French  and  Italian  models,  loi 
and  71  I,  102-5 ;  translations  from 
Du  Bellay,  Desportes,  and  Pe- 
trarch, loi  and  «  4,  102,  103 ; 
admissions  of  insincerity,  105 ; 
censure  of  false  sentiment  in  son- 
nets, 106;  Shakespeare's  scornful 
allusion  to  sonnets  in  his  plays, 
107,  108 ;  vituperative  sonnets, 
120-4  ;  the  word  '  sonnet '  often 
used  for  '  song  '  or  '  poem,'  427  ti  2  ; 
I.  Collected  sonnets  of  feigned 
love,  1591-7,  429-40;  II.  Sonnets 
to  patrons,  440;  III.  Sonnets  on 
philosophy  and  religion,  440,  441 ; 
number  of  sonnets  published  be- 
tween 1591  and  1597,  439-41 ; 
poems  in  other  stanzas  belonging 
to  the  sonnet  category,  438  71  2 

Soothern,  John,  sonnets  to  the  Earl 
of  Oxford,  138  >i  2 

Sophocles,  parallelisms  with  the 
works  of  Shakespeare,  13  « 

Southampton,  Henry  Wriothesley, 
third  Earl  of,  53 ;  the  dedications 
to  him  of  '  Venus  and  Adonis 
and  '  Lucrece,'  74  77;  his  pat- 
ronage of  Florio,  84  71 ;  his  pat- 
ronage of  Shakespeare,  126-50 ; 
his  gift  to  the  poet,  126,  200;  his 


youthful  appearance,  143 ;  his 
identity  with  the  youth  of  Shake- 
speare's sonnets  of  'friendship' 
evidence  of  his  portraits,  144  and 
«,  145,  146;  imprisonment,  146, 
147,  380;  his  long  hair,  146  71  2; 
his  beauty,  377 ;  his  youthful  ca- 
reer, 374-81 ;  as  a  literary  patron, 
382-9 

Southwell,  Robert,  circulation  of 
incorrect  copies  of  '  Mary  Mag- 
dalene's Tears  '  by,  88  7i ;  publi- 
cation of  'A  Foure-fold  Medita- 
tion '  by,  92,  397,  400  and  «,  401  71 

Southwell,  Father  Thomas,  371 

Spanish,  translation  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  into,  354 

Spanish  Tragedy,  Kyd's  popularity 
of,  65,  221 ;  quoted  in  the  Tattling 
of  The  Shrew,  221  n 

Spedding,  James,  263 

Spelling  of  the  poet's  name,  284-6 

Spenser :  his  description  of  Shake- 
speare in  'Colin  Clouts  come 
home  againe,'  79;  Shakespeare's 
reference  to  Spenser's  work  in 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  80; 
Spenser's  allusion  to  '  our  pleasant 
Willy  '  not  a  reference  to  the  poet, 
80  (and  quotation  tif;  his  descrip- 
tion of  the  'gentle  spirit'  not  a  de- 
scription of  Shakespeare,  81  and 
«  2 ;  translation  of  sonnets  from 
Du  Bellay  and  Petrarch,  loi ; 
called  by  Gabriel  Harvey  '  an 
English  Petrarch,'  loi  and  ?t  4; 
on  the  immortalising  power  of 
verse,  115;  his  apostrophe  to 
Admiral  Lord  Charles  Howard, 
140;  his  'Amoretti,'  115,  435  add 
71  5,  436 ;  dedication  of  his  '  Faerie 
Queen,'  398 

'Spirituall  Sonnettes  to  the  honour 
of  God  and  Hys  Saynts '  by  Con- 
stable, 440 

Sport,  Sluikespeare's  knowledge  of, 
26,  27  and  It,  IJ2 

Stael,  Madame  de,  349 

Stafford,  Lord,  his  company  of 
actors,  33 

Stage,  conditions  of,  in  Shake- 
speare's day  :  absence  of  scenery 
and  scenic  costume,  38  and  7t  2; 
the  performance  of  female   parts 


472 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


by  men  or  boys,  38  and  n  2;  the 
curtain  and  balcony  of  the  stage, 
38  «  2 

Stanhope  of  Harrington,  Lord,  234  « 

'  Staple  of  News,  The,'  Joiison's  quo- 
tation from  yi/liiis  Ccesar  in,  220  ti 

Staunton,  Howard,  311;  his  edition 
of  the  poet,  323,  324 

Steele,  Richard,  on  Betterton's  ren- 
dering of  Othello,  334 

Steevens,  George :  his  edition  of 
Shakespeare,  320;  his  revision  of 
Johnson's  edition,  320,  321 ;  his 
criticisms,  320,  321 

Stinchcombe  Hill  referred  to  as  '  The 
Hill'  in  Henry  IV,  168 

Stopes,  Mrs.  C.  C,  363 

Strange,  Lord.    See  Derby,  Earl  of 

Straparola,  'Notti'  of,  and  the 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  172 

Stratford-on-Avon,  settlement  of 
John  Shakespeare,  the  poet's 
father,  at,  4;  property  owned  by 
John  Shakespeare  in,  5,  8;  ques- 
tion of  the  poet's  birthplace  at,  8, 
9;  the  Shakespeare  Museum  at,  8, 
297;  prevalence  of  the  plague  in 
1564  at,  10 ;  actors  entertained  for 
the  first  time  at,  10;  defacement 
of  images,  ton;  the  Shoemaker's 
Company  and  its  Master,  12  «  3; 
the  grammar  school,  13;  Shake- 
speare's departure  from,  27,  29, 
31;  allusions  in  the  Taming  of  The 
Shrew  to,  164 ;  the  poet's  return 
in  1596  to,  187 ;  appeals  from 
townsmen  to  the  poet  for  aid,  195, 
196;  the  poet's  purchase  of  land 
at,  203,  204-6 ;  the  poet's  last  years 
at,  264,  266;  attempt  to  enclose 
common  lands  at,  269,  270;  the 
poet's  death  and  burial  at,  272; 
Shakespeare  memorial  building  at, 
298;  the  'Jubilee'  and  the  ter- 
centenary, 334;  topographical  ac- 
counts of,  363 

Suckling,  Sir  John,  328 

'  Sugred,'  an  epithet  applied  to  the 
poet's  work,  179  and  n,  390 

Sully,  M.  Mounet-,  351  and  n  i 

Sumarakow,  translation  into  Russian 

by.  352 

'  Supposes,'  the,  of  Geoige  Gascoigne, 
164 


Surrey,  Earl  of,  sonnet  of,  83,  95, 
loi  n  4,  427,  428 

Sussex,  Earl  of,  his  company  of 
actors,  35  ;  Titus  Andronicus  per- 
formed by,  36,  66 

Swedish,  translations  of  Shakespeare 

in.  354 
Swinburne,  Mr.  A.  C.,  63,  71,  72  n, 

333.  365 
Sylvester,  Joshua,  sonnets  to  patrons 
by,  38S,  440  and  n 


TaILLE,  Jean  de  la,  445  n 

'J'amburlaine,  Marlowe's,  63 

Taming  of  A  Shrew,  163 

Taming  of  The  Shrew:  probable 
period  of  production,  163 ;  identi- 
cal with  Love's  Labour's  Won,  163; 
the  sources,  163,  164;  biographical 
bearing  of  the  Induction,  164; 
quotation  from  the  Spauish  Trag- 
edy, 221 ;/.  For  editions  see  Section 
xix.  (Bibliography),  301-25 

Tarleton,  Richard,  81 ;  his  '  Newes 
out  of  Purgatorie '  and  the  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,  172 

Tasso,  similarity  of  sentiment  with 
that  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets, 
152  n 

'Teares   of  Fancie,'  Watson's,  428, 

433 
'  Teares  of  the  Isle  of  Wight,'  volume 
of  poems  eulogising  Southampton, 

389 

'  Teares  of  the  Muses,'  Spenser's,  re- 
ferred to  in  Midsummer  Xight's 
Drea?n,  80 

Tempest,  The  :  traces  of  the  influence 
of  Ovid,  15 ;  allusion  to  Prospero 
embarking  on  a  ship  at  the  gates 
of  Milan,  43;  the  shipwreck  akin 
to  a  similar  scene  in  Pericles,  244; 
probably  the  latest  drama  com- 
pleted by  the  poet,  251 ;  books  of 
travel  drawn  upon,  253  ;  the  source 
for  the  complete  plot  not  discov- 
ered, 253  ;  suggestion  of  Tieck  that 
it  was  written  as  a  mask  for  the 
marriage  of  Princess  Elizabeth, 
254 ;  performed  at  the  Princess's 
nuptial  festivities,  254;  the  date  of 
composition,  254  and  n ;  its  per- 
formance   at   Whitehall    in    1611, 


INDEX 


473 


254  n ;  its  lyrics,  255  and  n  2 ;  Ben 
Jonson's  scornful  allusion  to,  256; 
reflects  the  poet's  highest  imagina- 
tive powers,  256  ;  speculative  theo- 
ries about,  256,  257.  For  editions  J^f 
Section  xix.  (Bibliography),  301-25 

Temple  Grafton,  23,  24  and  n 

'  Temple  Shakespeare,  The,"  325 

Tercentenary  festival,  the  Shake- 
speare, 334 

'  Terrors  of  the  Night,'  piracy  of, 
88  n ;  nocturnal  habits  of  '  famil- 
iars '  described  in,  135  n 

Terry,  Miss  Ellen,  339 

Theatre,  The,  in  Shoreditch,  one  of 
the  only  two  theatres  existing  in 
London  at  the  period  of  Shake- 
speare's arrival,  32;  owned  by 
James  Burbage,  33,  36;  the  scene 
of  some  of  Shakespeare's  per- 
formances between  1595  and  1599, 
37 ;  demolished  by  Richard  Bur- 
bage and  his  brother  Cuthbert, 
and  the  Globe  Theatre  built  with 
the  materials,  37 

Theatres  in  London :  Blackfriars 
(^.v.)  ;  Curtain  (^.^'.)  ;  Duke's, 
295;  Fortune,  212,  233  u  1 ;  Globe 
(</.v.)  ;  Newington  Butts,  37 ;  Red 
Bull,  31  ft  2;  Rose  (i^.v.);  Swan, 
38  «  2;  The  Theatre,  in  Shore- 
ditch   {^.v.) 

Theobald,  Lewis :  his  version  oi Ham- 
let in  '  Shakespeare  Restored,'  224  ; 
allusion  to  an  unfinished  draft  of 
a  play  by  Shakespeare,  259 ;  his 
criticism  of  Pope  in  '  Shakespeare 
Restored,"  316;  his  edition  of  the 
poet's  works,  316,  317 

Thomas,  Ambroise,  opera  of  Hamlet 

by,  351 

Thoms,  W.  J.,  363 

Thornbury,  G.  W.,  363 

Thorpe,  Thomas,  the  piratical  pub- 
lisher of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets, 
89-95 ;  Marlowe's  translation  of 
the  '  First  Book  of  Lucan '  his  first 
piratical  work,  90,  135  n  ;  adds  '  A 
Lover's  Complaint'  to  the  collec- 
tion of  Sonnets,  91 ;  his  bombastic 
dedication  and  his  mention  of  '  Mr. 
W.  H.,'  92-5 ;  the  true  history  of 
'  Mr.  W.  H.'  and  (Appendix  v.), 
390-405 


TROILUS 

Three  Ladies  of  London,  The,  some 
of  the  scenes  in  the  Merchant  of 
Venice  anticipated  in,  67 

Thyard,  Ponthus  de,  a  member  of 
'  La  Pleiade,'  443,  444 

Tieck,  Ludwig,  theory  respecting 
The   Tempest  of,  254,  333,  344 

Tilney,  Edmund,  master  of  the  revels, 
233' «  2 

'Timber,'  Jonson's  notice  of  Shake- 
speare in,  220  n 

Tinion  of  Athens  :  date  of  composi- 
tion, 242;  written  in  collaboration, 
242;  existence  of  a  previous  play 
on  the  subject,  242;  its  sources, 
243 ;  the  poet's  coadjutor  possibly 
George  W'ilkins,  243.  For  editions 
see  Section  xix.  (Bibliography), 
301-25 

Tunon,  Lucian's,  243 

Titus  Androniciis :  one  of  the  only 
two  plays  of  the  poet's  performed 
by  a  company  other  than  his  own, 
36 ;  doubts  of  its  authenticity,  65 ; 
internal  evidence  of  Kyd's  author- 
ship, 65  :  suggested  by  Titus  and 
I  'cspasia?!,  65  ;  played  by  various 
companies,  66 ;  entered  on  the 
'Stationers'  Register'  in  1594,  66. 
For  editions  see  Section  xix.  (Bib- 
liography), 301  25 

Titus  and  Vespasian,  Titus  Androfii- 
cus  suggested  by,  65 

Tofte,  Robert,  sonnets  by,  438  and 
n  2 

Topics  of  the  day,  Shakespeare's 
treatment  of,  51  n,  52 

Tottel's  poetical  miscellany,  Surrey's 
and  Wyatt's  sonnets  in,  427,  428 

Tours  of  English  actors  :  in  foreign 
countries  between  1580  and  1630, 
42,  and  see  n  1;  in  provincial 
towns,  39,  40-42,  65,  214;  itinerary 
from  1593  to  1614,  40  n  i,  231 

Translations  of  the  poet's  works, 
342  seg. 

Travel,  foreign,  Shakespeare's  ridi- 
cule of,  42  and  7! 

'  Troilus  and  Cresseid,'  227 

Troilus  and  Cressida :  allusion  to 
the  strife  between  adult  and  boy 
actors,  217;  date  of  production, 
217,  225  ;  probably  suggested  by  a 
previous  play  on  the  subject,  225 ; 


474 


WILLIAM    SHAKESrEARE 


the  quarto  and  folio  editions,  226, 
227;  treatment  of  the  theme,  227, 
228 ;  the  endeavour  to  treat  the 
play  as  the  poet's  contribution  to 
controversy  between  Jonson  and 
Marston  and  Dekker,  228  n ;  plot 
drawn  from  Chaucer's  '  Troilus 
and  Cresseid,'  and  Lydgate's 
'  Trov  Book,"  227.  For  editions 
see  Section  xix.  (Bibliography), 
301-25 

'  Troy  Book,'  Lydgate's,  227 

True  Tragedie  of  Richard  HI,  The, 
an  anonymous  play,  63,  301 

Triie  Tragedie  of  Richard,  Ditke  of 
Yorke,  and  the  death  of  good  King 
Henry  the  Sixt,  as  it  was  sundrie 
times  acted  by  the  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke his  servants.  The,  59 

Turbervile,  George,  use  of  the  word 
'  sonnet '  by,  427  n  2 

Twelfth  Night :  description  of  a  be- 
trothal, 23  // ;  indebtedness  to  the 
story  of  '  Apollonius  and  Silla,'  53  ; 
date  of  production,  209;  allusion 
to  the  'new  map,"  209,  210  n  i; 
produced  at  Middle  Temple  Hall, 
210;  Manningham's  description 
of,  210;  probable  source  of  the 
story,  210:  its  romantic  pathos, 
210.  For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

Twiss,  F.,  364  M 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  :  allusion 
to  Valentine  travelling  from  Verona 
to  Milan  by  sea,  43;  date  of  pro- 
duction, 52;  probably  an  adapta- 
tion, 53  ;  source  of  the  story,  53  ; 
farcical  drollery,  53 ;  first  publica- 
tion, 53;  influence  of  Lyly,  62; 
satirical  allusion  to  sonnetteering, 
107,  108 ;  resemblance  of  it  to 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  163. 
For  editions  see  Section  xix. 
(Bibliography),  301-25 

Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  The  :  attributed 
to  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare,  259 
and  n  ;  reasons  for  assigning  part- 
authorship  to  Shakespeare,  260; 
Massinger  reputed  to  have  shared 
in  its  production,  260:  Shake- 
spearean passages,  260;  plot 
drawn  from  Chaucer's  '  Knight's 
Tale '  of  Palamon  and  Arcite,  260 


Twyne,  Lawrence,  the  story  of  Peri- 
cles in  the  '  Patterne  of  Painfull 
Adventures '  by,  244 

Tyler,  Mr.  Thomas,  on  the  sonnets, 
129  n,  406  n,  415  « 

Ulrici,  '  Shakespeare's  Dramatic 
Art  •  by,  345 

Variorum  editions  of  Shakespeare, 
322,  323,  362 

Vautrollier,  Thomas,  the  London 
printer,  32 

Venesyon  Comedy,  The,  produced  by 
Henslowe  at  the  Rose,  69 

'  Venus  and  Adonis  ' :  published  in 
1593  by  Richard  Field,  74;  dedi- 
cated to  the  Earl  of  Southampton, 
74,  126;  its  imagery  and  general 
tone,  75  ;  the  influence  of  Ovid,  75  ; 
and  of  Lodge's  '  Scillas  Metamor- 
phosis,' 75  and  ;/  2 ;  the  motto,  75 
and  n  i ;  eulogies  bestowed  upon 
it.  78,  79;  early  editions,  79,  299, 
300 

Verdi,  operas  by,  352 

Vere,  Lady  Elizabeth,  378 

Vernon,  Mistress  Elizabeth,  379 

Versification,  Shakespeare's,  49  and 
n,  50 

Vigny,  Alfred  de,  version  of  Othello 

by,  351 

Villemain,  recognition  of  the  poet's 
greatness  by,  350 

Virginia  Company,  381 

Visor,  William,  in  Henry  IV,  the 
name  of  a  family  at  Woodman- 
cote,  168 

Voltaire,  strictures  on  the  poet  by, 

348,  349 
Voss,  J.  H.,  German  translation  of 
Shakespeare  by,  344 


Walden,  Lord,  Campion's   sonnet 

to,  140 
Wales,  Henry,  Prince  of,  the  Earl  of 

Nottingham's  company  of  players 

taken  into  the  patronage  of,  231  « 
Walker,  William,  the  poet's  godson; 

276 
Walker,    W.   Sidney,   his   work    on 

Shakespeare's  versification,  49  n 


INDEX 


475 


VValley,  Henry,  printer,  226 

Warburton,  Bishop,  revised  version 
of  Pope's  edition  of  Shakespeare 
by,  318,  319 

Ward,  Dr.  A.  W.,  365 

Ward,  Rev.  John,  on  the  poet's  an- 
nual expenditure,  203 ;  on  the 
poet's  entertainment  of  Drayton 
and  Jonson  at  New  Place,  and  on 
the  poet's  death,  271 ;  his  account 
of  the  poet,  361 

Warner,  Richard,  364 

Warner,  William,  the  probable  trans- 
lator of  the  AlencBckmi,  54 

Warren,  John,  300 

Warwickshire :  prevalence  of  the 
surname  Shakespeare,  i,  2;  posi- 
tion of  the  Arden  family,  6  ;  Queen 
Elizabeth's  progress  on  the  way  to 
Kenilworth,  17 

Watchmen  in  the  poet's  plays,  31,  62 

Watkins,  Richard,  printer,  393 

Watson,  Thomas,  61 ;  the  passage 
on  Time  in  his  '  Passionate  Cen- 
turie  of  Love '  elaborated  in 
'Venus  and  Adonis,'  77  and  n  2; 
his  sonnets,  83,  427  n  2,  428 ; 
plagiarisation  of  Petrarch,  loi  n  4, 
102 ;  foreign  origin  of  his  sonnets, 
103;;  1, 112;  his  'Teares  of  Fancie,' 
113  71  I,  398,  433 

'  Weak  endings '  in  Shakespeare, 
49  « 

Webbe,  Alexander,  makes  John 
Shakespeare  overseer  of  his  will, 
II 

Webbe,  Robert,  buys  the  Snitter- 
field  property  from  Shakespeare's 
mother,  12  and  n  1 

Webster,  John,  alludes  in  the  White 
Divcl  to  Shakespeare's  industry, 
278  n 

Weelkes,  Thomas,  182  « 

Weever,  application  of  the  epithets 
'  sugred  '  and  '  sweet '  to  the  poet 
by,  179  n\  allusion  in  his  '  Mirror 
of  Martyrs '  to  Antony's  speech  at 
Cesar's  funeral,  211 

Welcombe,  enclosure  of  common 
fields  at,  269,  270  and  n 

'  Westward  for  Smelts '  and  the 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  172  and 
n  3 ;  story  of  Ginevra  in,  249 

Whateley,  Anne,  the  assumed  iden- 


WINCOT 

tification  of  her  with  Anne  Hatha- 
way, 23,  24  and  n 

Wheler,  R.  B.,  363 

Whetstone,  George,  his  play  of 
Promos  and  Cassandra  taken  from 
Cinthio's  Epitia,  237 

White,  Mr.  Richard  Grant,  325 

Whitehall,  performances  at,  81,  82, 
234,  235  and  n,  241,  254  n,  264 

Wieland,  Christopher  Martin,  begins 
a  prose  translation  in  German  of 
Shakespeare,  343 

Wilkins,  George,  his  collaboration 
with  Shakespeare  in  Timon  of 
Athetts  and  Pericles,  242,  243 ;  his 
novel  founded  on  the  story  of 
Pericles,  244 

Wilks,  Robert,  actor,  335 

Will,  Shakespeare's,  203,  271,  273- 
6 

'Will'  sonnets,  the,  117;  Eliza- 
bethan meanings  of  'will,'  416; 
Shakespeare's  uses  of  the  word, 
417 ;  Roger  Ascham's  use  of  the 
word,  417,  418  ;  the  poet's  puns  on 
the  word,  418;  play  upon  'wish' 
and  'will,'  419;  interpretation  of 
the  word  in  Sonnets  cxxiv.-vi.  and 
cxliii.,  420-6 

'  Willobie  his  Avisa,'  the  question  of 
its  relation  to  Shakespeare,  155- 
8 

VVilmcote,  house  of  Shakespeare's 
mother,  6,  7 ;  bequest  to  Mary 
Arden  of  the  Asbies  property  at,  7  ; 
mortgage  of  the  Asbies  property 
at,  12,  26;  alleged  identity  of  this 
place  with  the  '  Wincot '  in  The 
Taming  of  The  Shrew,  166,  167 

Wilnecote.     See  under  Wincot 

Wilson,  Robert,  author  of  The  Three 
Ladies  of  London,  67 

Wilson,  "Tiiomas,  his  manuscript 
version  of  Diana,'  53 

Wilton,  performance  of  Shakespeare 
and  his  company  at,  231,  232,  411 
and  n 

'  Wilton,  Life  of  Jack,'  by  Nash, 
dedicated  to  Southampton,  385 
and  n  i 

Wincot  (in  The  Taming  of  The 
Shrew),  its  identification  with  the 
Wincot  near  Stratford,  and  with 
Wilnecote  near  Tamworth,  165, 166 


476 


WILLIAM    SHAKESPEARE 


WINTERS 

Winder's  Tale,  A  :  seen  by  Dr.  For- 
man  at  the  Globe  in  1611,  251 ; 
acted  at  Court,  251  and  n\  based 
on  Greene's  Pandosto,  afterwards 
called  Dorastus  and  Favonia,  251 ; 
a  few  lines  taken  from  the  '  De- 
cameron,' 251  and  n\  originality 
of  the  characters  of  Paulina  and 
Autolycus,  251;  pathos  of  the 
story,  251 ;  the  presentation  of 
country  life,  251.  For  editions  see 
Section  xix.  ( Bibliography) ,  301-25 

'  Wire,"  use  of  the  word,  for  women's 
hair,  118  and  n  2 

Wise,  J.  R.,  363 

Wither,  George,  388,  399  n  2 

'  Witte's  Pilgrimage,'  Davies's,  441 7«  2 

Women,  excluded  from  Elizabethan 
stage,  38  and  ;/  2 ;  on  French  and 
Italian  stages,  38  « 2 ;  in  masks 
at  Court,  38  «  2 ;  on  the  Restora- 
tion stage,  334 

Women,  addresses  to,  in  sonnets,  92, 
117-20,  122  «,  123,  124,  154 

Woncot  in  Henry  /F  identical  with 
Woodmancote,  168 

Wood,  Anthony  fl,  his  description  of 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  414 

Woodmancote.     See  Woncot 

Worcester,  Earl  of,  his  company  of 
actors  at  Stratford,  10,  35 ;  under 
the  patronage  of  Queen  Anne  of 
Denmark,  231  n 

Worcester,  registry  of  the  diocese  of, 
3.  20 


ZEPHERIA 

Wordsworth,  Bishop  Charles,  on 
Shakespeare  and  the  Bible,  17  n  i 

Wordsworth,  William,  the  poet,  on 
German  and  French  aesthetic 
criticism,  344,  349 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  on  the  burning 
of  the  Globe  Theatre,  261  and  n 

Wright,  Dr.  Aldis,  314  n,  325 

Wright,  John,  one  of  the  booksellers 
who  distributed  the  pirated  Son- 
nets, 90 

Wriothesley,  Lord,  381 

Wroxhall,  the  Shakespeares  of,  3 

Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  sonnetteering 
of,  83,  95,  loi  n  4,  427  ;  his  trans- 
lations of  two  of  Petrarch's  son- 
nets, 104  ti  4 

Wyman,  W.  H.,  372 

Wyndham,  Mr.  George,  on  the 
sonnets,  no  n\  on  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  245  ;/ ;  on  Jacobean 
typography,  419  n  i 


YONGE,  Bartholomew,  translation  of 

'  Diana'  by,  53 
Yorkshire    Tragedy,    The,    180,   243, 

313 


Zepheria,  a  collection  of  sonnets 
called,  435;  legal  terminology  in, 
32  n  2,  435;  lips  compared  with 
coral  in,  iiS  ;/  2;  the  praise  of 
Daniel's  '  Delia'  in,  431,  435,  436 


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